MGB: need to vent.

so i bought a points and condenser kit via mossmotors.com, got them in and the gt ran great! now 63 miles later it stranded me today. the motor was running strong, and then went silent. no pop no sputtering just the wind. scary with a full peco system. so after i get towed home i did some figuring, some head scratching, some four letter wording, and the traditional tossing of the ratchet, i found my 63 mile condenser had sh/\t the bed. i was hoping to get amore that 100 miles out of a brand spankin new, never opened before me, straight from the manufacturer part. darn good thing i kept the old condenser, cause i put that in and the gt started right up. i sent an e mail to moss about the condencer, and we shall see if anything comes of it. thanks for listening everyone. cheers!

has anyone else had a new moss condenser fail?

Unfortunately it's not uncommon for a new condenser to fail right out of the box. It's not just a Moss problem. I have had several failures of new condensers over the years. Just chalk it up to experience and remember to keep a new condenser and points in the toolkit in your car so you can at least avoid having to call the tow truck.

I am reminded of what my old autoshop class instructor told us about condensers. "they seldom if rarely go bad, so do not replace the old one with a new one when you change the points" Now that was some 30 yrs ago but it hadn't failed me at that point. Today however, it seems that quite a few of the new parts that are being sold aren't worth a s**t. I have changed to a Pertronix unit and do not worry about such things now. (I still used to carry the new condenser in the tool box just in case)


Jim B.

What rotor? Also Moss? I've had 3-4 of them fail. Going alo9ng at 4 grand and pop. fire goes out. Idling while setting mixture, pop. fire goes out. sitting at stop light in heavy traffic. Pop the fire goes out.

buy your ign parts from Jeff at Advanced Distributors or NAPA (one of the local stores stock the MGB stuff!!). NOT MAIL ORDER FROM MOSS. (sorry Kelvin, bite me twice, shame on me.)

"Unfortunately it's not uncommon for a new condenser to fail right out of the box."

"I am reminded of what my old autoshop class instructor told us about condensers. "they seldom if rarely go bad, so do not replace the old one with a new one when you change the points""

The above is very true. an additional truism is that if a condenser is going to fail, it will usually fail shortly after installation. Our TD (which I purchased in 1974) never had the condenser changed as along as I had the points system in it. It was still working fine when I changed over to the Pertronix unit about 5 years ago. The original backing plate with preset points and the original condenser is in the tool box in case the Pertronix fails on the road.
Cheers,

I saw a condenser in an older MG fail a few weeks ago. The cheap thing only lasted 61 years. Yes, there are problems with the quality of new ignition parts. It's hit and miss. One will lat for years or even decades and another will not work at all.

My philosophy is to never replace a working condenser unless you need a spare, in which case run the new one and keep the old as the spare. Never keep a new anything as a spare part. Just my 2.34 cents USD and it's served me well.

[quote="Steve S"]
...run the new one and keep the old as the spare. Never keep a new anything as a spare part....[/quote]

x2

I replaced a condenser after only a year. It was installed as a might-as-well when I changed the points and plugs. Another lesson learned the hard way. Keep the old working condenser and carry a spare.

Rip open a capacitor and you will see that there is really nothing to fail except if the materials were never any good to start with. No moving parts and very little possibility for vibration or heat to cause damage.

X5 on the "keep the old capacitor" idea. I use to replace them as routing during a tune, but not any more just because of the problems that are mentioned here.

If you want to know if you "in service" unit is going bad look very carefully at the old points.

A "failed" set of points will be either dark gray or even crispy black, but not deeply cratered. If the capacitor is not doing its thing properly you will see a deep crater on the ground side and a matching "mountain" on the power side. THAT might indicate a need for replacement.

Over voltage at the points can also be a gremlin. As part of any proper tune the very first thing that should be done is a check of the battery and charging system. Connection problems there or other conditions that cause over-voltage from the alternator will overwhelm the primary side of the ignition system. Another thing to check is the actual voltage out of the delivery side of the coil. Using an "externally regulated" coil when an "internally regulated" unit is supposed to be there is a no-no. Melting of the breaker foot and or the pivot support is usually a result of one of these.

As far as low level quality from Moss is concerned, I am becoming convinced that the problem is not just in their stuff. It would seem to me that a simple system of physically picking a unit from an incoming delivery and doing a thorough inspection on it would be sufficient to catch nearly all the bad items for being actually shipped to customers. I have said this several times before and I still don't understand why Moss and the others don't do it. So what if the overhead cost per item goes up by a quarter? Charge me that much more, but please don't ship something to me that I have to apologise to my customer for or cause me to look like an idiot when the car stops working in "62 miles".

On the other hand you can't test for something like a batch of bad capacitors or coils or other solid state items or for the chemical makeup of rubber parts, but you can listen to customer feedback and jump all over the butts of those vendors who try to deliver products that in the end are going to very badly hurt your reputation and cost you tons of money. My latest rant about the quality of some of Moss's accelerator linkage bits for TRs and Healeys is an example.

Perhaps a "bonding" requirement to become a vendor would be appropriate. Say, if your product reaches X level of returns for poor quality the bonding company would step in and pay some sort of compensation, and then cut the vendor off resulting in him not being able to do business with Moss, or whom ever, again. Money and business talk and I suspect that such a requirement would jerk a knot in a vendor's tail pretty quickly.

Jack

***physically picking a unit from an incoming delivery and doing a thorough inspection on it would be sufficient to catch nearly all the bad items for being actually shipped to customers.**


basic QA [quality assurance], use MilStd 105D batch sampling methodology ,, determine sample size dependent on the desired AOQL [ average outgoing quality level]

its the tests of a element like a capacitor that are trouble. visual inspection for broken leads and poor potting are easy enough would it be necessary to place the unit on a test set that interrupted the current at 5000 in a hot vibrating oily environment for many hours ?

I remember changing mine to an external bosch one on an old 3A sprite spec motor in my old mini. Actually it was changed by an old country road service (auto club?) guy. Never had another drama.

It's not just Moss, I've had issues with Mallory, & others.

well its good to know im doomed to live in fear as my client rolls around in his car with a ticking timebomb under his hood. i guess its time to bring him in and train him on how to change out a condenser. thanks fellas

As others have mentioned, condensers have always had about the same failure rate new as old.

The issue in the automotive environment seems to be heat and vibration. I'm sure they are tested at the factory and meet spec. But they don't cycle them through heat and cold cycles and subject them to vibration - so you do see failures. The manufacturer probably only gets two bits for each one, so they can't justify full MilSpec type testing.

".............Unfortunately it's not uncommon for a new condenser to fail right out of the box." ...........

It's called infant mortality in the electronics industry. If something is going to fail it typically does within 90 days. Once you're past that, parts usually have an MTBF in excess of 100,000 hours.

That's why extended warranties on consumer electronics are such a money maker. The factory covers the infant mortality period. The extended warranty is convering something that most likely will not fail.

well moss appologized and sent me a new something, my computer wont let me open the pdf. but its .20 lbs shipping weight. i like moss again.

[quote=boyesreef]
well moss appologized and sent me a new something, my computer wont let me open the pdf. but its .20 lbs shipping weight. i like moss again.[/quote]

Hopefully this one will work, As for next time don't be afraid of your local auto parts store as the stock most of the common parts plugs wire ignition parts etc.. Not trying to put down Moss but you could save money and time.

The problem with many of the local parts is that they are commonized to fit a large variety of applications, so you end up putting something not quite the same in place of what was stock. I'm thinking specifically of points.