Bare spark plug connectors??? I have never seen that even in 'those' days (I woz there). Some numpty put them on without the rubber covers. 8V coil, never heard of that either. BTW you can get electronic points, saves a lot of hassle, and easier to adjust the timing. Glad all is sorted.
These cars are so simple to service and keep running perfectly. It’s usually always ignition problems by poor servicing or cheap parts. A & B series engines are very reliable indeed. Old fashioned cast iron, if you ever lose the hot water , you don’t get aluminium buckled cyl. heads.
Very helpful as always and just a real pleasure to look at the car . I can't get enough of your videos with the midget. Thanks for sharing Mark from Maryland
You probably have to be as old as me to know the tricks and tribulations of these things, but bare metal plug caps, even loose fitting ones shouldn’t cause a misfire. The rubber plug caps were more about radio interference suppression, in fact, a dodge of the day was to pull the caps off their seats to encourage a flooded engine to start. Bikers amongst us (of a certain age) will remember that with copper cored plug leads, you could introduce a shirt button into the picture to beef up the spark at the plug gap. Better starting and better running was the theory. The rest of us just had to put up with a loud buzzing on our radios and TVs whenever one of these vehicles got close by. Ballast resist coils, on the other hand, were the devils work, a bodge work around thought up by the manufacturers to overcome starting problems caused by the introduction of emission controls in the early 70,s. I can’t remember why anybody thought that was a good idea. If you put a standard 12v coil on a ballast resist car, it ran like a piece of shit. In fact, a late model Midget or Sprite could quite possibly have had a ballast resist ignition system. I was more into Fords in those days, if your coil had two wires on the +ve terminal, one of them white, then you had a ballast resist system. Being an upstanding eco warrior sort, I regarded it as my duty to rip off such heresies and cast them asunder (along with automatic chokes, vv carburettors and catalytic converters) I think they declared open season on my sort around 1980 in Australia. I had a mk2 Escort as a company car and it had an economy gauge on it, I did my best to keep it in the red at all times. No I didn’t pay for my fuel.
Bare metal plug caps don't work well when rain water splashes up on them... One day I noticed water coming out from under the engine box on my boat, I lifted the box to see what was going on and the engine (Ford 302" V8) was covered in water but still running normally with the rubber booted sparkplugs under water, as I had forgotten to put the drain plug back in the rear of the boat before launching it. My female cousin said, "are we sinking?" I said, "yes". I had my cousin drive and speed the boat up to a half plane so the water would drain back out while I went into the cuddy cabin and changed into swim suit. With water gone, we stopped boat/engine, and I quickly jumped over back and put the drain plug in. Then we proceeded to where the 4th of July fireworks were being set off. Turned the radio to station playing patriotic music synchronized to the fireworks display. My cousin was so impressed and had such a family good time that after returning to her home 1500 miles away she had her husband get a boat. Ignition systems with ballast coils been around as long as I can remember: at least back in 1950's... they work great... with USA made coils... battery voltage is 10 - 11 volts when running the starter, 14.2 volts (GM) when running, so the ballast resister/wiring compensates for all that. In 1960's I drove a '62 Oldsmobile JetFire with economy/boost gauge... I enjoyed the red part: ruclips.net/video/Jzw5W1rRMog/видео.html
Lucas equipment is perfectly capable of excellent service over a long time. My 1966 MGB still runs its original coil and dynamo and regulator the distributor has been rebushed. When you buy a car of that age you should straight away change the spark plugs, HT leads (I have silicon on my car) distributor cap and rotor arm. I have fitted a red rotor arm and an ignition amplifier due to the "highly variable" quality of the currently available rotor arms and ignition capacitors. Loose HT caps should have no effect as noted before, the spark will easily jump the air gap.
Im having these same issues on startup on my 70. But it ran sweet for 18 months then started doing it. So at the 3:37 mark you mention loose spark plug connectors, but didn’t say how that was fixed. Did he just squeeze the tips with pliars or something to make the metal cap fit tighter?
Having the same problem with my MGB. I replaced fuel pump. It improved but still low power and backfire. I'm going to check ignition coil and plug contacts. Maybe that will work 🐱 Thanks 🙏
I have a 2 litre pinto powering the mk 3 Capri..my distributor packed up. With a after market distributor I had all kinds of issues. Just wouldn't run right. I located a original Bosch, set it all up and had pinking trouble. I gave the points a bigger gap, done the timing by ear. Timing the engine properly I couldn't get rid of the pinking. Adjusting the timing by ear is a good method. My engine is running perfect. Also todays petrol is rubbish. I only use super unleaded. Plus add a drop of lead substitute to add with petrol for upper head lubricant. The ignition timing can be very frustrating to get right. Retarding is to compensate for today's poor petrol quality. Petrol today is junk for classic cars.
Ahem. MG Midgets have Lucas ignition systems. Any and All engine diagnosing processes start with looking at the ignition systems on these cars. This shouldn't have come as a surprise. In reality, this being almost 2022, an after market modern ignition system should have been one of the first three things you did to this car upon purchase. Forget originality. Visualize being infinity away from home with a dead car. I love these cars, and if I was smaller, would buy another one in an instant. But Lucas ignitions are the Achilles heel of enjoying a Midget trouble free. Enjoy this car. It is as much motorized fun as you can have with never exceeding 45 miles and hour
Lucas were good quality, a lot of the aftermarket parts are totally inferior, UK were brilliant at capacitors & chokes, BLETCHLEY PARK SPY RADIO were the best, UK very good electrical, electronic engineers, TOMMY FLOWERS & GPO engineers were brilliant, first digital computers albeit valve driven. UK still has clever electronic technicians. BILL TUTTE & TOMMY FLOWERS never got the credit they deserve, it’s always big mouth politicians.
@@davidbarrett1487 I will not argue the engineering about the high voltage engineering here, I've run my 10 year old, 70,000 mile A engine to 6500 RPM with no problems or engine damage. But I did it on a dry day. I've never understood how an ignition system so sensitive to moisture was developed by a company based in England, the land of rainy skies. My final 'cure' was to slather every possible moisture entry point in on the high tension side of the ignition with silicon caulk. Only then did the car become reliable enough to use as a daily driver.
@@davidbarrett1487 The sprays offered to me from the dealership were ineffective. The same dealership offered some non-spec American designed replacement distributor caps and spark plug wires. that is the route I ended up taking, but still required sealing the cap to the distributor to exclude moisture. This all happened 40 years ago. I would hope that improved pieces are now available to make all these issues a thing of the past.
That Midget is pretty clean. Love that engine bay.
My first car at 16, a British Racing green 66' Midget. Great little car, despite the Lucas problems.
Bare spark plug connectors??? I have never seen that even in 'those' days (I woz there). Some numpty put them on without the rubber covers. 8V coil, never heard of that either. BTW you can get electronic points, saves a lot of hassle, and easier to adjust the timing. Glad all is sorted.
My 70 midget has the same original bare spark plug connectors like his. I guess it was a thing
These cars are so simple to service and keep running perfectly. It’s usually always ignition problems by poor servicing or cheap parts. A & B series engines are very reliable indeed. Old fashioned cast iron, if you ever lose the hot water , you don’t get aluminium buckled cyl. heads.
Very helpful as always and just a real pleasure to look at the car . I can't get enough of your videos with the midget.
Thanks for sharing
Mark from Maryland
You probably have to be as old as me to know the tricks and tribulations of these things, but bare metal plug caps, even loose fitting ones shouldn’t cause a misfire. The rubber plug caps were more about radio interference suppression, in fact, a dodge of the day was to pull the caps off their seats to encourage a flooded engine to start. Bikers amongst us (of a certain age) will remember that with copper cored plug leads, you could introduce a shirt button into the picture to beef up the spark at the plug gap. Better starting and better running was the theory. The rest of us just had to put up with a loud buzzing on our radios and TVs whenever one of these vehicles got close by. Ballast resist coils, on the other hand, were the devils work, a bodge work around thought up by the manufacturers to overcome starting problems caused by the introduction of emission controls in the early 70,s. I can’t remember why anybody thought that was a good idea. If you put a standard 12v coil on a ballast resist car, it ran like a piece of shit. In fact, a late model Midget or Sprite could quite possibly have had a ballast resist ignition system. I was more into Fords in those days, if your coil had two wires on the +ve terminal, one of them white, then you had a ballast resist system. Being an upstanding eco warrior sort, I regarded it as my duty to rip off such heresies and cast them asunder (along with automatic chokes, vv carburettors and catalytic converters) I think they declared open season on my sort around 1980 in Australia. I had a mk2 Escort as a company car and it had an economy gauge on it, I did my best to keep it in the red at all times. No I didn’t pay for my fuel.
Thanks for the interesting background!
Bare metal plug caps don't work well when rain water splashes up on them...
One day I noticed water coming out from under the engine box on my boat, I lifted the box to see what was going on and the engine (Ford 302" V8) was covered in water but still running normally with the rubber booted sparkplugs under water, as I had forgotten to put the drain plug back in the rear of the boat before launching it. My female cousin said, "are we sinking?" I said, "yes". I had my cousin drive and speed the boat up to a half plane so the water would drain back out while I went into the cuddy cabin and changed into swim suit. With water gone, we stopped boat/engine, and I quickly jumped over back and put the drain plug in. Then we proceeded to where the 4th of July fireworks were being set off. Turned the radio to station playing patriotic music synchronized to the fireworks display. My cousin was so impressed and had such a family good time that after returning to her home 1500 miles away she had her husband get a boat.
Ignition systems with ballast coils been around as long as I can remember: at least back in 1950's... they work great... with USA made coils... battery voltage is 10 - 11 volts when running the starter, 14.2 volts (GM) when running, so the ballast resister/wiring compensates for all that.
In 1960's I drove a '62 Oldsmobile JetFire with economy/boost gauge... I enjoyed the red part:
ruclips.net/video/Jzw5W1rRMog/видео.html
Glad you finally got everything sorted.
Lucas equipment is perfectly capable of excellent service over a long time. My 1966 MGB still runs its original coil and dynamo and regulator the distributor has been rebushed. When you buy a car of that age you should straight away change the spark plugs, HT leads (I have silicon on my car) distributor cap and rotor arm. I have fitted a red rotor arm and an ignition amplifier due to the "highly variable" quality of the currently available rotor arms and ignition capacitors. Loose HT caps should have no effect as noted before, the spark will easily jump the air gap.
Im having these same issues on startup on my 70. But it ran sweet for 18 months then started doing it. So at the 3:37 mark you mention loose spark plug connectors, but didn’t say how that was fixed. Did he just squeeze the tips with pliars or something to make the metal cap fit tighter?
Having the same problem with my MGB. I replaced fuel pump. It improved but still low power and backfire. I'm going to check ignition coil and plug contacts. Maybe that will work 🐱
Thanks 🙏
I have a 2 litre pinto powering the mk 3 Capri..my distributor packed up. With a after market distributor I had all kinds of issues. Just wouldn't run right. I located a original Bosch, set it all up and had pinking trouble. I gave the points a bigger gap, done the timing by ear. Timing the engine properly I couldn't get rid of the pinking. Adjusting the timing by ear is a good method. My engine is running perfect. Also todays petrol is rubbish. I only use super unleaded. Plus add a drop of lead substitute to add with petrol for upper head lubricant. The ignition timing can be very frustrating to get right. Retarding is to compensate for today's poor petrol quality. Petrol today is junk for classic cars.
Ahem. MG Midgets have Lucas ignition systems. Any and All engine diagnosing processes start with looking at the ignition systems on these cars. This shouldn't have come as a surprise. In reality, this being almost 2022, an after market modern ignition system should have been one of the first three things you did to this car upon purchase. Forget originality. Visualize being infinity away from home with a dead car.
I love these cars, and if I was smaller, would buy another one in an instant. But Lucas ignitions are the Achilles heel of enjoying a Midget trouble free. Enjoy this car. It is as much motorized fun as you can have with never exceeding 45 miles and hour
Yes... 80% of that sort of prob is ignition...20% fuel/air.
Lucas were good quality, a lot of the aftermarket parts are totally inferior, UK were brilliant at capacitors & chokes, BLETCHLEY PARK SPY RADIO were the best, UK very good electrical, electronic engineers, TOMMY FLOWERS & GPO engineers were brilliant, first digital computers albeit valve driven. UK still has clever electronic technicians. BILL TUTTE & TOMMY FLOWERS never got the credit they deserve, it’s always big mouth politicians.
@@davidbarrett1487 I will not argue the engineering about the high voltage engineering here, I've run my 10 year old, 70,000 mile A engine to 6500 RPM with no problems or engine damage. But I did it on a dry day. I've never understood how an ignition system so sensitive to moisture was developed by a company based in England, the land of rainy skies. My final 'cure' was to slather every possible moisture entry point in on the high tension side of the ignition with silicon caulk. Only then did the car become reliable enough to use as a daily driver.
@@cdjhyoung Yes, you could get soft plastic covers for the distributors and buy moisture repellent sprays.
@@davidbarrett1487 The sprays offered to me from the dealership were ineffective. The same dealership offered some non-spec American designed replacement distributor caps and spark plug wires. that is the route I ended up taking, but still required sealing the cap to the distributor to exclude moisture. This all happened 40 years ago. I would hope that improved pieces are now available to make all these issues a thing of the past.
Great videos would love to to some videos together i have supra mg and mx5
Cool!
never forget Paul walker...burned alive in an oil and gas car fire