I'll count on someone who was paying attention to the results and can
do justice to a description to post a real summary of the event -- I'm
just going to report that Sarah (my TR-4A) and I did just fine on our
first try at autocrossing. My times, well, let's not talk about my
times except to say that I managed to remove over two seconds between
my first and fourth runs. Sarah performed flawlessly -- lack of speed
is largely due to the driver, not the car! We'll definitely be back at it.
We left early for dinner, and then had a visitation from the Prince of
Darkness. I'd been seeing momentary blips of the ammeter over the past
couple of days, uh oh, an intermittent short. Well, on the way to
dinner, the intermittent became persistent enough to blow the fuse.
There go the turn signals and brake lights. OK, get to dinner, search
for an obvious short, nothing. Eat a wonderful dinner. Come out --
what's all that dripping under the rear of the car??? Push forward,
hmm, it's not oily. Look more closely -- oh, it's just the ice chest
dripping through the drain hole in the boot!
Can't find the short, replace the fuse. Drive home. Some blips, and on
the bridge across the bay, (it's dark now), it hits hard -- somehow
associated with the tturn signal flashers, because the lights are
dimming regularly, with the turn signal and generator indicators coming
on brightly. Pull over, pop the fuse, drive home.
As if to say "I've been a good girl, but I'm tired now", just as we
turned into our block, Sarah died. Completely. No lights, no starter,
no nothing. What??? An easy push into the driveway ... the positive
battery terminal was loose.
Still haven't found the short. I'm suspicious of the flasher, but my
initial theory of the flasher shorting to the indicator doesn't hold up
-- that little lamp just wouldn't eat that much current. I'll keep
looking. If the damn thing wasn't intermittent, it would be easier...
(of course it would).
chris
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