On the road to MG2003, in Lawrenceburg, IN

OK, we've landed on the edge of Indiana. Here's the update on my B.

The coil had definitely gone bad. Checked it with the multimeter (the one I am bringing for Gary!), and it was only showing 6v this morning. Swapped in a coil one of the other MG guys had, so that's up to 12v now.

But it's still not charging. It's definitely not the starter, because it starts right up with a jump.

We highly suspect the voltage regulator, which may have gotten bad juice (a short or something) from the bad coil.

As Chuck reported, Phil Needham is bringing me a regulator tomorrow night when we meet up with him as planned in Nashville, IN. We're heading down to meet up with Chuck Tuesday afternoon, and Chuck has a line on a generator or two, in case that turns out to be the problem. (But the generator is only a year old, and I don't think that much can go wrong with them, so my money's on the regulator.)

But we'll see! It's been a great adventure so far, even with the electrical problem. Because MG people are such a great community.

I drove today with a portable battery pack thing keeping the car with enough juice to power the wipers. (Necessary, as it just keeps raining!)
We've "hot wired" the car with a jumper to bypass the charging system altogether, to try to avoid draining the battery / battery pack as much as possible.

Right now, we've got my battery in the hotel room, being charged. And I've got Jeff Zorn of Little British Car to bring me a new coil and new regulator to the St. Louis show, because he'll be there as a vendor.

This is really fun! Can't wait to meet up with Phil and Chuck, and head off to St. Louis.

Thanks for being there for me, guys!

Great, I was worried things had taken a turn for the worse

Great to here it going good enough. The trips that have things like this make them all the more memorable. Our trip to CT last year involved push starting it everytime for two days till a 6v battery could catch up to us. We had fun with the adventure of it :-)

Run a jumper wire from the fuse box to the field connection on the generator. If it charges then your problem is the regulator or the field wire from it to the generator. You can't drive with the jumper on because it causes the generator to charge at full tilt and will burn it up if you leave the jumper on too long.

which one is the field connection again? (Isn't there a big terminal and a little terminal, if I'm remembering correctly?)

looks like a brown and green wire, but it may be something else and green, definetly green

No, I just didn't have a chance to log back and on and report. Right after this morning's post, I went out to the parking lot to work on it, and then we took off.

Between Phil and Chuck, I fully expect to be fully operational by the time we pull into St. Louis. (And if not, there will be no end of resources there. )

The little one is the field connection. The big one runs to the starter and your battery cable ties in there.

OK, thanks -- I'll check it out in a few minutes when I go out to put the battery back in the car. I'll report back in later today. (Have to pack up and hit the road soon...)