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MG TD TF 1500 - Corrosion troubles

Hi all-
I recently purchased a lovely 1950 TD that was bought up by me at one of the better known big classic car auctions. It came with a box full of receipts for various things that went into the car, including a new wiring harness. The wires all look lovely but the problem I am having is where they connect to the voltage regulator box, under the set screws. Greenish corrosion seems to form pretty fast on those wires, and I am left with bad connections. It is easy enough to take each wire out from under the screw and give it a good brushing with a fine wire brush, but is that the best I will be able to do? Very frustrating.

Any thoughts? How do you guys keep the green crud at bay?
G Gilly

You could tin any bare wire with solder after thoroughly cleaning them, and solder on any missing terminals. After connecting back up spray over with WD40 or something similar.
Dave H
Dave Hill

After a clean setting, I use clear coat paint from the can.
M Grogan

Go to auto parts store and buy a small tube of dielectric grease. It is made to prevent corrosion in connections. It works will in the dizzy cap to plug wires connections too. George
George Butz



Jeff Schlemmer says to keep dielectric grease away from plug wires.

Jim
James Neel

I read on the internet about tinning wires. Looks like a lot of work taking off all the natural oxide on the individual copper strands to get the tinning to stick, but probably well worth it. Should last decades until it need a touch up. For all those that don;t know what we are talking about, tinning with a soldering iron or little torch and solder makes the exposed wire strands quite resistant to oxides forming. Should not any decent wire installers have done that when the new wires were installed? And same for wires going into ring connecors and bullets, etc?

I don;t want to move away from authenticity in the car, but rather towards it. They must have had tinned wires originally, otherwise why the sort of voltage regulator connections? Seems pretty downright obvious they must have designed it with tinned wires in mind.
G Gilly

I would try a very small wipe of Vaseline in the first instance.
John Walton

After cleaning the wires or preferably stripping the wires back to obtain uncontaminated copper crimp on "bootlace ferrules". Dont purchase the color coded variety the originality police will never observe you have installed them if you install them correctly and use the correct crimping tool.

G Evans

I live on the Florida coast which is a similar environment to Hawaii. We have a lot of corrosion problems, especially on the wiring of boats. A friend, who is an avid deep sea fisherman, put me on to a product he claims solved his problem with corrosion in his boats wiring. After cleaning his connections he sprayed BOESHIELD on the connections. It was developed by Boeing Aircraft to protect aircraft components. He says it lasts for years. I bought a can (it's not cheap)and plan to use it on my nearly completed TF restoration. Image attached.
Good Luck, John

JR Mahone

G Evans, when tinning copper wire ends, "stripping the wires back to obtain uncontaminated copper" is not good enough. The copper strands need to be shiny copper clean for the tinning to adhere. Unless the copper strands have just got made at the wire factory, they will have an oxide layer that needs removing to get tinned. I understand you are talking about stripping to get wire that has not got dirt and oil on it prior to the ferrule you are talkng about, but what I'm talking about is quite different. Just to clarify.

JR, though not required by any Coast Guard or other maritime or boating regulations I am aware of, many oceangoing vessel makers and re-outfitters like to use what gets called "marine" or "boat wire," which is copper wire made up of individual copper strands, just the same as our auto copper wires, but before it gets the insulation jacket, and before any oxides get a chance to form on the copper, they somehow tin each copper strand, then make the strands into whatever gauge wire, then the insulation jacket. It is also called "pre-tinned" copper wire. When it is pre-tinned you can just crimp it or solder to a connector, without having to go to all the hassle of cleaning off the oxide layer etc., to tin the stripped ends that go onto the early grub screw type voltage regulator and some other connectors on the car too. Earlier MGs like the TA TB & TC came with pre tinned copper wires throughout. Great stuff. Must have cost a few pennies more than the bean counters would allow when they got to the TD and TF and later MG's
G Gilly

This thread was discussed between 31/01/2017 and 01/02/2017

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