My brother fitted a new clutch to his Austin A105 while on holiday. After towing a very old and heavy caravan. May have been before the days of rescue and recovery.
Worst I've had was a windscreen breaking on the autobahn. Toughened type, so not just a crack. On an Austin 1800. No spare available in Frankfurt or the surrounds, so drove all the way home with a temporary one. Which let in a lot of air. ;-)
No reserve and an electric SU pump on a moggy.
I got really good at Mini fan belts. Must have done dozens. Mini vans were a sod, though.
Don't think Travellers ever had them. Different shape tank to a Vitesse, too. I only remember seeing them on Heralds and Vitesses.
Moggy pump starter == Birmingham screwdriver.
Done that a few times.
In message , Rob Morley writes
Sadly not, and the pump is electric in a Minor.
Triumph 1300 engine rebuilds, Done several
From memory the fuel gauge sender is under floor mat in the boot/behind rear seats. Just a float and a rheostat. The floats were very prone to leaking and filling with petrol and sinking to the tank bottom.. Just two halves soldered together. This gives a permanent"empty" signal.
The fuel tank is like a bath that sits on the "floor" secured with about six screws through the rim into the floor.
Moggie has electric fuel pump. Prone to sticking. Can be heard ticking away,
In message , harry writes
Indeed, although silent when I unwrapped the car, post winter, a couple of weeks ago. Removed the cover from the contacts, sprayed with contact cleaner and wiggled back and forth a few times, and now ticking reliably again. Until the next time :-)
In message , harry writes
A job planned for later this morning. This vehicle is a Traveller rather than saloon, so has a 'false floor' with a gap below for the spare wheel. The temptation is to stuff other things under there too, so there is a fair chance the wire has been knocked off the sender. Will investigate and report back.
In message , harry writes
Thinking aloud here. Were I to disconnect the wire from the tank sender, and short it to earth, assuming wiring and gauge OK, the gauge will then read 'full', confirming the fault is with the sender?
I'll check the fuse first!
Don't think the tank shape matters. Just two pipes drawing from different levels, and a changeover valve.
On the Minors I knew, only two fuses. So lots of other things not working if one blew.
You could also measure the resistance of the tank unit between full and empty. If that doesn't change, you have the answer. IHMO it's more likely to fail than the gauge itself.
Checking the gauge as you said is a good idea.
I thought the Triumph one was divided vertically, which was why I mentioned it.
In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes
Quite right - I thought about that after sending :-)
The answer turned out to be very simple - having hoiked the spare wheel out, I found the wire off the sender terminal! Reconnected, and all is well.
Electric cars don't have any of that stuff.
Just ultra expensive batteries to fail. When they're not flat anyway, of course.
Aftermarket ones were, but not iirc from the factory
Much later (on the A+ introduced on the Metro and Mini) they eliminated the short bypass hose altogether by using a sandwich plate with a hose spigot between the head casting and under the themostat elbow connecting to a T on a radiator hose.
The cylinder head under the thermostat housing was initially blanked with a screw in plug and later modified so it no longer had any provison for the screwed in bypass spigot, the water pump also being redesigned to have no bypass provision
AFAIR just two (concentric?) pipes in the tank, one reaching the bottom and the other not quite, you twisted something on top of the tank to go from regular to reserve. I'm guessing that also had the advantage of the higher pipe not picking up crud and water from the bottom of the tank in normal use, while you could squeeze out the last gallon when needed.
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