Yesterday I was all giddy with delight having gotten the Midget running
and legal. Today I am depressed and sad. Went to a dinner party at the
bosses house and had to take the MG. Was a beautiful evening for a
cruise. Everthing was great!! On the way home a serious racket developed
under the hood about 3 miles from the house. I pulled over and popped the
newly polished bonnet and there was the alternator squealing like a stuck
pig. Decided to try to get home before the alt bearings failed and got
about 2 blocks when the squeal stops and a vast amount of smoke bigins to
flow out. I hoped that the friction would snap the belt, but when I
popped the bonnet again it was still on the pulleys. Being the very
intelligent person that I am, I had taken NO tools with me for this
evening cruise. ;-( Having had the belt snap for the same reason in the
75 about 16 yrs ago I had an immediate solution, however it is predicated
on the fact that the belt breaks if you have no tools. I went back to the
boot took out the spanner for the knockoffs and used it as a lever to pop
the belt off while the SO bumped the engine with the starter. It Worked.
The frozen alternator was loose from the rest of the spinning bits. I
then reached down to my sneakers pulled the shoestring out and tied it
very tightly around the waterpump and crank pulleys. (remember I had been
through this before). Fired that baby up, and with judisous coasting to
help the cooling we made it home. Single word of warning if you need to
try this use one of the old fashioned flat shoestrings not one of the
newer round colored ones. The round colored one is what I had last night
and it did not work as well as the flat one I had used before.
Major question - We went through the Delco etc replacements for the B is
there a Delco or other alternator replacement for the 1500 Midget???
Larry Macy
78 Midget (Pretty as a picture, Gonna have to get it a Snickers)
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