Well this weekend turned out to be a real treat. The Prince of Darkness
strikes almost fatal blow to the LBC.
A friend and myself, (atleast he was a friend, I haven't seen him since
the incident), were out sipping on some ale at the local meat market,
oops I mean the local dance night club, this weekend, after which we
haeded home shortly after last call. Well it would have been nice to say
that we made it all the way home.
We did not make it home, otherwise I would not be telling this tale of
an adventure. As I was saying we were headed homeward at about 1:15 am
Staruday night Sunday morning. The car was running great after
installing the Grose jets, and syncing the carbs. Still need to get the
correct pulley so I can install the new water pump though. We were just
toolin along when the lights started doing weird things like going
bright and dim, then the ignition light came on, the car started to
stutter and stammer. There was a popping sound and the car died, no
lights, nothing. Then it came the loudest explosion I had ever heard
come from a car that did not produce a lot smoke. Well we had smoke but
that did not come until later. But with the explosion I started looking
for the flames from behind me and any tell tale signs that the car was
aflame. What I saw was quite disturbing, I saw pieces of metal and
whatever else the altenator and regulator was made out of trailing
behind the car in flames and hot embers.
I immediately started looking for traffic so if we had to dive out of
the car it would not be into some traffic. Which of course would have
complicated matters even worse. Well there was no traffic to speak of so
I turned my attention to more pressing matters, like why was there smoke
coming from under the bonnet. Not much just enough to cause some alarm.
Well there happened to be an entrance to a trailer court, so I pulled
into the entrance and jump out, right after realizing that the iginition
switch was still on. This was the cause of the smoke, it made toast out
of the wiring harness and connector to the altenator.
>From what I could deduce from the broken, melted mess of an altenator
and regulator I, the regulator shorted out and caused the frightening
display of fireworks.
I think I could probably avoided this if I had recognized the symptoms
that I was seeing a week before the nightmare happened. When idling at
night, like just before turing off the ignition, I noticed that the
ignition light was glowing very dim, and if I stepped on the accelorator
then the light would go out. Well the car had never done this before
this time, so I should have realized then that something was amiss.
Well hind sight is always 20/20. To bad foresight is blind, and stupid.
My one question is, has anyone ever experienced this phoenomenon, of the
exploding regulator, and melting altenator? One would have thought the
bearing had frozen and caused all kinds of havoc, but no it spun freely,
in fact I suspect that I could probably gotten away with just replacing
the regulator, but..., better safe and sure than take a chance.
It's bad enough that I have to put up with chides that I drive a very
unreliable and flakey car. I keep insisting that it has character and
not flakey , and unreliable. But I get stares that make you think that
maybe I'm not dealing with a full deck at times. In fact it would not
suprise me if some of those folks thought I was about as sharp as a
marble. But there are others that admire me for perserverence and they
like the car and understand it's problems.
There is nothing like having to work on ones car just to drive the thing.
Bruce "the guy with the flaming electrics" Carter
PS: I did get a rebuilt altenator, but I have a Rube Goldberg
contraption for an altenator connector. (Hard Plastic, electrician tape,
and a tie wrap).
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