Moss Motors, Ltd

I posted about this before hand but now I am just stumped.

The car is a 54 TF 1250cc with positive ground. I was having problems with the passenger tail light not working since the resto was done on the body 2 years ago. Its always at my fathers house so until recently when I took it to my house to fix all the little things it has not been addressed till now.I replaced the old flasher relay with the new Moss DB10 Style Flasher Relay. And what do you know the Tail lights/turn signals worked in the garage. Took it out for a drive and blew the fuses every time I used the turn signals with the headlights on. I figured has to have bad grounds somewhere.  Well I spent the better part of 2 days chasing bad grounds and cleaning paint off and fixing the grounds. I now have much better head light power, front turn signal power and the rear tail lights are the same as before, no change as they were never dim before hand anyhow. With the all the grounds fixed I turned to the turn signal/brake light problems. I got both tail lights working for awhile then while experimenting with the turn signals I had the driverside brake/turn signals working great no problem there. But the passenger side turns will not work. And now the brake light wont work only the running light. All lights have brand new bulbs and none are blown I have checked them. All the fuses are good and no problem there. 

 

Help me! 

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1954 MG TF 1250cc
Fully restored
She's a driver not a show car.

The flasher is very old also. No idea when or if it was ever replaced over the years. My grand father owned the car since new before we got it so I have no idea. Though I find it hard to believe its bad when the driverside of the car works no problem. Thought I just tested it and it only flashed 3 times before it stopped.

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1954 MG TF 1250cc
Fully restored
She's a driver not a show car.

Spike - I would be willing to bet that the problem you are having lies with the turn signal relay, even the problem you are having with the brake lights.  What you need to do is to remove the relay, open it up and clean and adjust the contacts so that they make contact the way they are supposed to.  Be sure to mark the wires as you take them off the relay (8 wires), so that you get them back on the right terminals.  Clean the contacts with some 400 grit sand paper and, if necessary adjust the contact arms so that the movable contact makes a good, square contact on the non movable ones.  If you have problems, contact me directly at SUfuelpumps@donobi.net

 

 

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Cheers,
Dave
http://homepages.donobi.net/sufuelpumps/

I'd have to agree 100% with Mr.Fuel Pump!  Bad contacts on that relay may explain everything.

The fact that it blew fuses when you took it out, but not in the shop is very interesting. When you tested it in the shop, was the engine on or off? I ask for my own edification.

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On their death bed, nobody ever said, "Gee I wish I'd spent more time at work!"

'68 Sprite 1275
'76 Midget 1500

The car has the new Moss modern relay, so no more adjusting is needed on it.

 When I tested the turn signals and lights the first time before it blew them all I had the engine off. It was running on just battery power. This was before I went back through the car and fixed a few bad grounds I had.

 I got the brake lights working again no problem, but even with the new flasher in and the engine on or off I get no turn signals. I am very confused by this. <br>

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1954 MG TF 1250cc
Fully restored
She's a driver not a show car.

You will most likely need a helper for this: find the power source for the relay—green w/brown, jump that wire to the White w/Brown wire (on one of the middle four terminals). Do you have passenger Tail light? If so, jump it to each of the middle four terminals, have your helper check to see that each direction lamp and stop light is lit. If you have lights all around, the chances are that the relay is N.G.

Thanks for the help, that totally skipped my mind to try. Always good to get a new person to toss in fresh ideas. I will post back how that works.

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1954 MG TF 1250cc
Fully restored
She's a driver not a show car.

So the flasher is defective, I by passed it and it the lights turned on. So the new modern flasher is not sending out power to the lights for some odd reason. Called Moss and I have to send it back in to their return department and wait for them to tell me if I can return it or not. Not sure how I feel about that. Makes me feel like I am going to get screwed. I am not going to be happy if I end up with a $128 paper weight.

 

But there is nothing else it can be. All the grounds are good, all the wires are correctly connected, all the bulbs are good, and all the switches are good. When I add power to the wires coming off the flasher relay that go straight to each light they will work. So the flasher is just not doing its job. I was hoping this modern one was going to cause less problems. Guess you can't count on that with a British car. 

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1954 MG TF 1250cc
Fully restored
She's a driver not a show car.

Spike. 

Fear not. Moss isn't about to screw you. The tech department needs to check the relay unit before issuing a credit because it is nigh on impossible to determine if the relay unit failed, or it was damaged by other wiring problems without inspection. It's very important that we find out exactly what went wrong because a lot of time and energy went into designing the updated relay assembly and if there are any problems with manufacture or circuitry we want to know about it as soon as possible. The unit uses modern micro relays that soldered directly to a circuit board, so any short circuits capable of blowing fuses would have to be the connections between the original style external connectors and the board. This should be very easy to check. If this connections are ok, but the relays are damaged by overload, it would indicate that there is another problem external to the unit. That would negate the warranty, but more importantly it would indicate that more trouble shooting would be required on the car or any replacement unit would also be destroyed.

If the problem is not caused by the relay unit, the Moss techies will give you a report and then try to work with you to find what did cause the problem. It's important to us that you get your car fixed and on the road, so we will do what we can to help.

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Kelvin Dodd
Global Sourcing Engineer
Moss Motors, Ltd.
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Disclaimer: Working on automobiles is inherently dangerous. Moss Motors, Ltd. is not liable for injury or damage due to incorrect installation or use of their products. All products are sold with the understanding that the safe and proper installation and use of the products is the customer’s responsibility. Follow factory workshop manual procedures and instructions, but use current shop safety standards and common sense. Some tasks will require professional advice or services which Moss Motors cannot provide.

I'm not saying they are gonna screw me over, I just have delt with other companies that would not honor returns and place blame on the customer for parts that never worked. Lets just say I have been screwed over before because of this. I just want the car to be legal to drive lol.

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1954 MG TF 1250cc
Fully restored
She's a driver not a show car.

I'm not an electrical guru by any means, but I have learned that bulbs associated with the flasher units must be of the proper wattage in order to function reliably. Not just identical terminal connections, but also identical wattage as original bulbs.

 How did you do in that department ?