No Juice

[Mark Gordon]

I suddenly have no electrical supply to my Series 1 OTS. The battery is fully charged and reads 13 volts, but when I first tried to start it, I heard just two feeble ticks from the fuel pump and only a click from the starter solenoid. After pulling the battery and putting it on a charger (which quickly went from 2 amps down to a trickle), I now have nothing: no clicking from the starter solenoid, no head lamps, no radio, interior lights, cabin fan, etc. I cleaned the connections to the battery and have an additional ground cable to the engine. Could this be a faulty voltage regulator and are there any tests that I can run to check the regulator? Any other ideas?
Mark

[Heuer]

Have you tried a different battery? Could be one of the cells has died so although you have 13 volts there is no capacity (amperage) to power anything. The VR only adjust the voltage from the alternator to the battery so is unlikely to be at fault. Try a 12 volt battery from another car or use a set of jump leads and try starting it.

[christopher storey]

Mark : the voltage regulator would only affect charging . What is more likely is that there is a failure on the positive connections. First of all lower the centre panel and check for 12 volts to each of the fuse blocks fed by brown wires . If this reading is deficient you will need to check the supply to the brown wires. You will find that the red positive lead goes to an insulated terminal which goes through a bracket just below the heater and which connects the red battery lead to the ( usually 2 ) large brown wires which carry current to the rest of the system . It is probable that one of these connections is loose or very dirty/corroded

Check also the connections at the starter , and clean up the battery terminals with abrasive or a file which will eliminate the problem ( often on the earth/ground side) which sometimes arises of there being sufficient connection to carry a light load, which is broken the moment any current demand is made

[Mark Gordon]

Thank you, David and Christopher. I did clean the battery posts and the mating surfaces of the battery cables. I will try another battery and then if that is a no go, I'll check the center panel connections.
Mark

[Mark Gordon]

I guess some people are so stupid that they shouldn't be allowed to work on their own cars and I'm one of them. I went back to the battery cables (which I had already cleaned) and started rechecking them and found that the battery cut off switch that I have attached to the positive lead had come loose. I cleaned it and retightened it and, what do you know, she fired right up! Any way, thank you, David and Christopher, for your quick responses to my question.
Mark

[Tony]

While on Marks subject. I try and run the engine once every few weeks to keep the rear oil seal lubricated if nothing else. Although I would be surprised if the oil seal dried up within a couple of weeks if not months?

Basically the car does not want to start if left for more than a week without resorting to a lots of turning over. Eventually she does go and after that will start first if tried daily, with no problem.

Is thia an e type quirk or is there something I am doing wrong.

What I do is put her on full coke and and just keep turning her over until eventually she starts (after about 12 goes). Are there any other recommended ways of starting her after a few weeks of laying idol.

[1954Etype]

Tony, these cars generally require a lot of choke when cold. Make sure your choke is operating properly and is fully on when you have the 'cold' option selected.

[Heuer]

Tony

My car behaves exactly the same way. Leave it for more than a couple of weeks and it takes a while to get it to fire yet it starts on the first turn during daily use. I have put it down to the fuel supply not being under enough pressure. Leave the ignition on until the fuel pump stops ticking and then try. It will probably start, falteringly in my case, after about 8 go's rather than 12.

[christopher storey]

Tony - my cars behave exactly the same way as those of you and David. I think it stems from the fact that the inlet tract volume is really quite large, and with the gas speeds being quite low under cranking, it takes a long time to fill the manifold with mixture

[Tony]

Thanks everyone for the comments. It looks like it is just one of those things, so I will ignore it.

[JEP41]

I will probably upset a few but I love and have triple webbers installed on my car 45 DCOE's. With my employment requiring I send six months of the year onboard a ship, my car sits for a month at a time sometimes three months in the winter if I do not use it due to the weather on my month off at home. With the webbers I just switch on the kill switch (batteries always fully charged with a kill switch). Ignition on, fuel pumps on, depress the throttle fully four times then hit the starter button. There is no choke on my Webber carburetors. The engine fires immediately pops and bangs a few times (Oh I do love those webbers) then settles down to a lumpy idle (due to the cams installed) never stalls and idles at 600/700 rpm's. David is correct about the smell of burnt fuel you get in the cabin with webbers and the poor mileage but I love the smell and will will live with the poor mileage. I am used to that, I owned a Ferrari Daytono back in the 1980's and it had 6 webbers and if I was lucky did 12 MPG. That was one of the best all round road cars I have ever owned. Apart from the brakes. (Two laps at Donnington and the brakes were gone) :D

[Tony]

John,

I have had a love hate relationship with multiple Webers 45's for the last 25years, but when they are set up right, they are a great carbs and not as complicated as people think. The induction noise I found on a open top car was quite wearing. If you tried to use a cold induction system to cut down the noise you ended up sacrificing power.

However, I am getting to old and the days of the smell of petrol, back fire on hard deceleration and flames out of the exhaust are gone. The SU's are smooth, quiet and look nice with the 3.8 engine.

[Heuer]

John's comments about the Webers and Christopher's insight confirms it is a fuelling problem as those carbs inject fuel with each throttle depression whereas the SU's do not. Incidentally the de riguer carb upgrade to the E-Type in-period was to 40DCOE's for road use with 45DCOE's reserved for racing were revs were consistently above 3,000.