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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Stuffed Ammeter - is it fixable?

Hi all

My nice Smiths ammeter has ceased to function correctly

The needle is stuck at -10A, and it only shows -ve of that, so if I flick lights then I can make it move, but it never goes back to 0.

Car's not doing it it's the ammeter, voltmeter shows OK charge and perhaps more telling the spare one doesn't do it either...

It's a nice little thing so I wondered if they are fixable or is it a case of 'no serviceable parts inside', and getting relegated to on top of my desk with the other dead dials...

Cheers

:)
Rob Armstrong

did the smoke escape?
David Smith

What extreme event caused it to be so grumpy? Are all the connections in the loom that feed it 100% ok?

A
Anthony Cutler

No magic smoke escaped, and the big blue spark genie stayed within the loom.

It's been wobbly for ages, must have just decided to throw a strop. It would resonate at certain rpm (mechanical rather than electric)

Connections are huge and all good, I did it with big fat wire, in fact it's so fat I keep mistaking it for brake pipe in the engine bay.
Rob Armstrong

Rob

If it were mine I'd have a go at fixing it, if you can open it up they're normally fairly simple inside. Most Smiths instruments can be opened by twisting the front bezel, you can then remove the glass and once the nuts from the terminals are removed the guts can be removed. My guess is the needle pivots are worn. Some gauges have the front bezel crimped in place, these are more difficult to open. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you but you need to be careful with ammeters as the full battery power is available at the terminals and a short to ground could easily cause a fire.

Bob
R.A Davis

yep, ammeters are tricksky little bu**ers. the 'new' one has all it's rear covered in insulating tape where there might be a spark.

Going to have a go at taking it apart next, after fixing the P6's ignition light...
Rob Armstrong

Rob - Try Paul Draycott tel 01527 524046 Redditch, Worc's - He can repair all gauges / speedometers etc
John M Platt

You can usually find a decent one at an autojumble or Ebay. Getting it fixed, would probably be more expensive than a new one. £33 from speedycables.

http://www.speedycables.com/smithminorgauges.html

Cheers John
HALL JOHN

This thread was discussed between 16/12/2011 and 17/12/2011

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