Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 M3W - check the following

Following a highly successful Morgan Three Wheeler Club Touring Group trip to Northumberland it’s worth telling or reminding people about some basic electrical checks that need to be carried out on the M3W, particularly if you have an early car. Note, some dealers do not seem to be aware of all of these.

Battery

If you still have a Banner battery then it is NOT a sealed for life unit. Periodically you need to unscrew the inspection ports at the top of the battery (use a 2pence piece or similar) and check the plates are covered in electrolyte. If not top up each cell with distilled water. If you don’t the battery will boil dry and fail.

Rectifier

If you still have the original MMC fitted rectifier with the fins facing forward then check there are TWO short back earth wires going from the bottom of the unit to the chassis. They were originally delivered with one wire but there was a factory advisory for dealers to add the second wire at the next service. If you only have one wire then add a second otherwise you are increasing the risk of regulator failure (or even better change to a Harley rectifier as per the Alternative Parts List.)

Spark plugs

Every now and then pull of the plug cap and check the screw nipples at the top of each plug are tight. If they come loose the car will be harder to start or may not start at all.

Plug Leads

This one is rare but important! Carefully check the plug leads for chafing or cutting where the leads go under the front cowl. If a plug lead shorts out when the car is running then unburnt fuel gets dumped in the exhaust pipe and catches fire. This happened in Northumberland and was exacerbated by it being an early car with the heatshields bolted to the exhaust. The heat transferred via the mounting bolts and set fire to the powder coating on the heatshield. We repaired the plug lead and all was fine apart from a heavily discoloured exhaust and a bit of burnt paint.

Sounds like it was good news in that no M3Ws needed to be trailered away during the Northumberland trip!

PS: saw some TR6s on Dartmoor the prior week - Two Bridges Hotel would be a great touring group base for a few days! I was amazed to find a leat carrying water that had been built in the 1790s near there... making that the time Modern Engineering caught up with the Romans!!!

Unfortunately one car had a few of the problems and the owner decided to have it recovered to Craig at M3WServices to sort it out.

It arrived in Swindon at 00:30 and was fixed by 11:00 the same day!!

Oops my bad! What went wrong?

Flat battery due to running dry and it needed a couple of other things checking over.