The 'E' Type Forum

I have a voltmeter in the cigar lighter socket.

You should be able to slide the coupling up and down on the shafts, but there should be little or no side to side movement.

Thanks for that Steve. I bought a pulley from Tudor. I'll change out the globe too. Yesterday I noticed that when I pushed the starter button the voltage dropped from 12.8 down to 6 or 7 volts while the starter was going and the engine was turning over much slower than normal. I'm not sure what this...

I'm going to make up another wire to bypass the loom. And probably replace the engine earth cable under the car.

Realistically, it has to be the wires. There's nothing else.

I'll keep you posted.

Good thoughts both. I did wonder about the engine earth.

I’ll go and have a look.

I'm perplexed by a charging problem I'm having with a fully restored 3.8 coupe. This car had a standard Lucas dynamo wired through an RB340 control box with entirely standard new wiring from Autosparks. Over the last few years I've had intermittent failure to charge the battery, with the generator/c...

That's very clever.

Is something getting hot?

Sounds like brake fade due to brake fluid boiling.

I get that Randall and I do actually use 30W engine oil in my MGB gearboxes but that recommendation is from 70 years ago and who knows what formula changes have occurred in that time. The Redline products on the other hand are specifically designed for gearboxes and have the runs on the board as far...

They’re probably hardened as well.

So if you find you have to make new ones because the holes are worn I’d use something like 4140 which you can easily harden as necessary.

I dunno. SAE 30 is an engine oil designed for small 4 stroke engines like mowers and its viscocity is double that of MTL at 40c although very similar at 100c. MTL is specifically designed to a be synchro friendly gearbox oil with low sulphur. I can’t find anything about the SAE 30. MTL and MT90 are ...

I'm in two minds as to whether to keep the ammeter or not.

I'm going to replace the ammeter with one with the guts of a 50 amp Landrover one which I think should be robust enough.

Otherwise I'll convert to a voltmeter, but I'd prefer to keep it original if I can.

Follow up. #5 plug lead pulled; no difference in rpm. Plug removed; oiled up. Replaced. Car runs perfectly.

We'd been moving the car in and out of the garage a lot while working on Dave's ND. Too much choke fouled the plugs.

Good outcome. The early 4.2s had the front and rear circuits reversed in comparison to all the later cars.

Yes negative earth. I agree now I look at it the diagram terminals are drawn in a different order. I have wired it to the letters.

mgcjag wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 26, 2026 7:11 am

Hi Amdrew....great info....Thanks for posting

All good. It surprised me that I couldn't find instructions for doing this easily.

Hopefully this will save someone else the trouble in the future.

I thought I'd write a little post about installing the Tudor Dynamator in my 3.8 coupe. I'm doing this because it wasn't immediately clear how to do this. First a word about Tudor. I chose to order the Dynamator from their website, which is in the UK. The price is listed as GBP 199.95, which is the ...

Before I delve into the electrics again is there any reason the car should now only run on 5 cylinders after fitting a Dynamator?

I can't think of one, but I am a little poorly educated when it comes to the electrics.

I got sick of trying to work out why the generator wasn't charging the battery.

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My guess is air as well. Try pressure bleeding as above.