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MG TD TF 1500 - Condensers and Ground

Jeff Schlemmer (Advanced Distributors) sent this to me this morning regarding condenser failure. Good reminder to provide good ground connections.

"Good condensers fail from poor grounding, or lack of adequate grounding. Any engine should have at least 2 ground straps the size of a battery cable, or the battery attached to the engine directly via ground PLUS additional ground cables between the body, chassis, and engine, overlapping the same battery cable when possible. Original battery cables are no good, even if they look good on the outside. They're pretty much guaranteed to be black or green internally.
Jeff"


Dave DuBois' (RIP) article is a wonderful resource for ground connections. Thanks to Dave Braun for preserving his articles.

> GROUND POINT AND (OTHER ELECTRICAL CONNECTION) PREPARATION
https://www.dbraun99.com/Dave%20DuBois/Electrical_Connection_Preparation.pdf
or
http://www.dbraun99.com/Dave%20DuBois/Electrical_Connection_Preparation.pdf

EDIT: The link may not work. Copy and paste, or go to Dave Braun's site and find the article.
http://www.dbraun99.com

Lonnie
TF7211
LM Cook

Lonnie

Excellent research, best solution is to run 12mm cable direct from battery earth terminal to bolt on engine head blanking plate. Your ignition problems will fall into insignificant.

Graeme
G Evans

I ensure that the paint was removed with a pilot brush in a drill.

The battery is grounded close to it’s location, then I have a 2ga cable from the body to the bell housing, again paint removed at point of contact.

The mounting point for the condenser needs to be clean too.

A real test would be a sensitive volt meter from the ground terminal of the battery to a clean part of the distributor. In theory that should be zero, in reality, very close to zero. Trying that while cranking the engine would be the best check.

Peter
P G Gilvarry

I have two ground straps to the chassis, one on each side of the engine, haven't noticed any electrical problems yet. PJ
PJ Jennings

Condenser failure is not uncommon. I had "new" condensers fail right out of the box when tuning up an engine. Either they failed upon install or failed after engine is running at operating temperature. Another issue was secondary coil wire to the distributor.


cheers

Gary
79 MGB
Gary Hansen

Interesting, I'm currently having issues so I will check things out this weekend.
Bill TD24570
Bill Brown

Condenser failure was pretty common for a couple decades, but it isn't so common anymore if you buy quality parts. The stuff in the green "Lucas" box is the same old junk. The best ones come from Distributor Doctor in the UK, and also from British Vacuum Unit in the USA. In several years of regular driving, I haven't had a single condenser failure from these sources. I've had plenty fail from other sources over the years, including the company in the original post above. Distributor Doctor also sells much better points than other sources, and is the only one I know of who makes them to the original design.
Steve Simmons

This thread was discussed between 11/11/2020 and 13/11/2020

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