As a good friend of mine used to say, "If you think
it's bad now, just wait till later". For anyone who's
been around me lately might have noticed things either
going extremely great or extremely bad, and last
night was no exception.
After nice time with the usual SCARE folks at the
Duke, I fired up Redcar for the trip home. As I
trundled out of the parking lot I heard Dick Nyquist
bellow out my name. Expecting a witty adieu, I was
mildly disappointed when he shouted "No taillights".
I ambled down the road till I could find a
convenient place to troubleshoot. A BP gas station was
located and I pulled under the lights.
Upon inspection, the problem was not just that I
had no taillights, but no brake lights or front running
lights either. Headlights and turn signals was all
she'd do. Not feeling very lucky as of late, I opted to
track down the problem rather than chance a drive home
at this point.
Underhood inspection at the wiring harness
junction revealed no loose connectors, as did a look at
the light switch. I tried the lights again, and with my
bad luck roller coaster picking up speed, found that
this time I had no headlights either. Determining that
there was power going to the switch but none coming
out, I quickly realized that the switch was expiring.
This explained the intermittent front running light
syndrome I noticed in the reflection of cars that were
in front of me this weekend.
Not having a spare light switch in my tool box, I
opted for the next best thing; a small hose clamp
tightened around the hot wire, the headlight feed and
the running light feed. Key on, and Voila ! Headlights
and still no running lights. By this time I was
exhausted and exasperated, and was willing to take my
chances driving home. I guess the roller coaster had
bottomed out and had begun to head upward, as I made it
home w/o incident.
Upon reflection I always try to find the good in
whatever happens, and when I realized what a damper this
electrical problem would've been to my extended coastal
drive/wine tasting adventure with the Traveling Companion
this last weekend, I smiled. Thank you Redcar, for
waiting to have a problem just when I could afford for
you to have one.
cheers-
dstone@sc9.intel.com
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