Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Starting problem

Proud +8 owner 1993, unfortunately not technical, sudddenly starting problem, have changed battery, after turning key only hear ‚click‘, no start engine sound whatsoever, please help.

Checking the main engine to chassis earth would be a start ... costs nothing .... you could try connecting a jumper lead from the body of the starter to the negative terminal of your battery or a good chassis earth if that's not practical .... if that does nothing then move on to the next step. Good Luck

K

Check first the battery chassis connection and that to engine casing itself - usually flat braided high current cable.

If all ok there are two other possibilities. If you only hear a faint click, from the starter relay it could be this faulty or complete failure of the piggy back starter solenoid. You can check with a voltmeter whilst someone turns the key. If you hear a loud clunk this indicates the solenoid is trying to engage the starter pinion but not supplying current to motor underneath, or the starter motor itself has failed.

Most +8 owners carry spare starter relays.
My S1 roadster started doing what you described. Pushing back in gear would solve it so I was going down the starter motor route but I thought I would check the earth first.

A jump lead worked so I removed the connection on the gearbox. Though outside it looked fine it was heavily corroded on the inside face of the connector.

I suspect moving the car rocked the earth lead to give a better connection.

The earth connection tends to have a hair trigger connect/don't connect feature. I've had cars where even when cleaned & tightened, the connection is unpredictable. Often one final nip with the spanner fixes it.

On cars with the battery at the front I would always run battery negative cable with a suitable crimped on eyelet direct to one of the starter motor securing bolts. Then a short braided lead from engine or gearbox casing to chassis. Not practical with battery at back though.

In the time honoured fashion of TM thread drift, I had issues with my +8 rev counter some years back, and as best I can remember, I ran a flexible non insulated and braided auxiliary earth strap from my rear mounted battery earthing point through the Mog, adding a link as it passed by the gearbox to provide an auxiliary engine earthing point and carrying on to end up at the bolt fixing the coil to the inner wind..... Unfortunately it did not resolve my taco issue but hopefully provided a bit of belt and braces in terms of possible chassis earthing as the old thing ages... (-:

Having a rear mounted battery, I tend to connect my CTEK at the alternator using the crocodile clips, neg clip to the alternator`s fan belt connection point, and the positive to the alternators output connections. It has been working that way for decades without issues, though that might not work for some... I defer to anything Richard V6 might care to add to the method of CTEK attachment..

BTW, I sent my rev counter off to be repaired at the time, it too has been working well for quite a few years now... (-:

With respect, I have learned early on to abandon all braided earth straps. Three Morgans all seem to fail fcaused by them and diagnosis is made tricky because:
1. they look good..but from only one side
2. They most often show their inadequacy when placing a draw on them..otherwise they test fine. Anything that dubious should be better unless one is a
fanatical traditionalist who prefers inevitable failure to reliability.

As an example, I am showing a braided battery earth strap removed in France, recto verso. It would fail only when engaging the starter. My first such experience
was my first Morgan lesson the day after I bought my first Morgan. In that case the breaded earth strap, engine to frame failed stopping the car cold on the highway.

I use one earth strap to the battery and two from the engine (there are fittings for them at the rear of the all LR Plus 8 engines). We are not the only ones using
these V8s for 60+ years...the other part of that community have become wiser over time. Frustration is pathetically easy to avoid before it happens,

gmg

Dear Friends, first i would like to thank you all for responding in such a professional way and soo fast!! Have tried all recommendations and think that problem was in the starter relay cable connecting to start engine. Will set up new starter relay soon!
Thank you all, it saved me money and a lot of stress, although i am an experienced Morganeer….
Unfortunately i will not be of a lot of help to you but you never know in the future…..
Keep on rolling……..

Good to know we might have relieved a bit of stress, hope you get your issue resolved soon, please do not hesitate to get back to us if your fix does not work out as you might hope..

I suspect braided cables were designed to be used in situations where a high degree of flexibility is required, and in most cases I have seen they tend to be uninsulated. However I guess in vehicular use the lack of insulation/protection may expose them to corrosion. i.e. in parts of the world where salt might be used on the roads in Winter..?

Where a similar degree of flexibility may not be required an insulated flexible cable with heat shrink over the junction of cable to its termination will be better protected from such corrosion.

In the case of the need for a a highly flexible cable used as a earth return, there is generally no reason to insulate it, as contact with people or surrounding metalwork provides little to no potential issue of electric shock or short circuit..

As per gmg`s kindly supplied image... Many occasions of electrical circuit failure, tend to be caused at the point of a junction, such as at the the terminal that is crimped or soldered on to the end of the cable, or where that terminal connects to the component to be supplied with electricity.

Looking again at gmg`s braided cable pic, it seems perhaps possible that the point of connection braid to terminal, has suffered some reduction in current carrying capacity as a result of fraying of the conductors at the terminal, perhaps due to age..?

Any reduction in the Cross Sectional Area, of a conductor ( section cut through the copper wire) can lead to overheating at or near the point of partial failure, (reduction in c.s.a.) and in time along the length of the conductor, which generally shows up initially as discolouration at the point of failure, which can be masked up to a point by insulation until things really begin to heat up.

Once again using the image of the failed braided termination point, it seems a tad unusual for discolouration not to show all the way around the termination prior to total failure, perhaps a fastidious owner who likes to keep his engine bay clean and tidy, if not sparkling, might even have cleaned the accessible area of the braided cable termination which may have masked the issue as it progressed with time...?

In my case of using braided cable as belt and braces earthing, my Mog`s chassis was stripped and coated with two pack lacquer at the time of it`s "restoration" and the idea of drilling into it to provide better earthing points seemed less than desirable. Making use of a braided cable as an auxiliary earth, was a combination of thoughts at the time, in that I had that cable to hand, and possible future connections to it anywhere along it`s length, would be somewhat simpler than if an an insulated cable had been used.

As ever, just thinking in type, and more than happy to be corrected when I get things wrong....