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MG TD TF 1500 - Superstition or Cause/Effect?

A little humor for thought....There have been some good posts lately about the long, very long, process of restoring T-types and the journey that it truly is. One thing that amuses me most about these cars is their ability to make superstitious creatures out of all of us.

How many times do you find yourself doing something out of a belief that it will cause a desired outcome or prevent an undesired one? Do you have certain rituals that you perform before, during, or after driving the car because you perceive a cause and effect from doing so from a previous positive experience?

There seems to be at least a dozen possible causes for every symptom that may arise and, like mice in a lab, our behaviors change based on the 'conditioning' we get from the cars (shouldn't it be the other way around?).

From the various goops, goos, and potions we pour into the orifices of the cars to the twists and turns we give to the numerous adjusting nuts and screws, we each seem to find our own ritual dance to keep them running. Whether there is a scientific reason behind any of the success is often pointless. If it worked last time, it will work next time, right?

I try to tell myself that, no matter what, 10 things are breaking on the car at any given time and to not always assume they're connected, or that anything I do will actually have an effect on the car. But I don't listen.

Yesterday, I installed the new mesh ground cable that goes from the transmission housing to the frame (sort of hoping it would solve some other problems that I won't go into). After doing so, the car wouldn't start. Nothing from the starter at all. I checked all the wires and connections and still nothing, except maybe a quiet 'click' sound...or was I just imagining that?

So, I "assumed" the battery was too low to energize the starter, even though the car started fine an hour earlier when I moved it from the driveway to the garage. I just "assumed" that my suspicion that I have a phantom drain on my battery was once again proving itself true (I have many similar suspicions). So, I disconnected the battery and put it on the charger.

While that was going on, my other suspicion was that the new ground wire I had just spent a good, hot hour under the car installing in a very tight space (all the while remembering that I told myself two years ago to stop and install it before I put the body, interior, and everything else on the car during the restoration when it would have been easy) was somehow interfering with the electrical personality of the car. I hate it when I have two suspicions competing against each other!

I thought about the posts I'd recently read about re-polarizing the car and thought through the positive ground issues of the car and wondered if it made a difference that I put the mesh ground wire on a transmission bolt in the seven o'clock position rather than the eight o'clock position as suggested by a poster. You see how the madness begins?

I reconnected the battery after charging it, and still nothing. I was not about to get back under the car and undo the new ground wire, I knew that would be foolish, but I wouldn't rule it out later if necessary.

When I need supernatural wisdom to help me through these matters I don't exactly don facepaint and a spear and dance around in a circle. I generally chant a few explicatives at the car from a distance of about five feet and see if that helps. After doing just that, somehow, it occurred to me that maybe none of my suspicions were correct and that the problem was the starter was somehow stuck. I mean, the battery was good (at least I was 90% sure, I mean it is five years old, but hardly used, and just worked earlier, and, and, and,...).

So, I put the darn car in 4th gear and rocked it gently back and forth. On the second surge, I heard a mild 'pop'....put it in neutral, turned the key, pulled the starter and she fired up in less than one second (I'm guessing the now extremely overcharged battery had enough juice to launch the space shuttle!)....

Oh well, just another day and a new superstion to add to my list of future troubleshooting tactics. Men, we must be insane!
robert

I think it is just Murphy's Law. It is amazing to me how often two unrelated problems can occur at the same time, or as in your case sequentially. Unfortunately in most cases we build in additional problems trying to chase that phantom, or over engineer a simple problem.

Dallas
D C Congleton

Robert - What a delightful dissertation on a simple problem that often rises up behind us and bites us in the rear. It makes me wish my wife was still doing the newsletter for our local Register, I would have her put in the next edition. Cheers - Dave
David DuBois

And how true it all is... its as if the 'gremlins' wait for us to pick up a wrench and then go into fits of laughter and then do their work on all the 'other' little technical areas we hadn't thought about since the last time we crawled under the car... Don't think I have ever owned a car that would have two unrelated items go south at the same or within minutes of each other... everything is fine for months, then 'wham', you blow a fuse 'and' a fuel pump, or whatever...!!!
My favourite is when the car misfires once or twice, and suddenly the SU's are laying on a bench being stripped when it was a bad rotor.... My mechanic always adds "are you sure you want to do this????" whenever I pay him a visit, whether its for an oil change or some other adjustment....!!!
gblawson - TD#27667

I found out what that little square 9mm protrusion is for on the end of the starter. It saves rocking the car in gear. They must have known at the factory that these were prone to lock-up every once in a while.
SEAMUS
F. HEALY

I believe, as long time, multiple Jag seden (BBC) owner, and an MG (LBC) owner, they share a common trait. Unrelated components fail, after the offending component has been repaired, because they have "died in sympathy" :-) No other logical explaination.

Cheer

Larry
Larry Karpman

I also think we tend to always seem to go to the more difficult potentials instead of the simple ones. I do it all the time. It's like adjusting the carburettor when the car starts running ruff. We know that it is near impossible for the carburettors to change their settings, but there is just some devil sitting on our shoulder saying - Just fiddle with the adjusting nut, that will fix it.
BEC Cunha

This thread was discussed between 01/08/2007 and 02/08/2007

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