[TR] relays in TR3's and VTR rambling

[THOMAS FANSHER]

I had a wonderful time in Valley Forge. My hats off the Delaware club for the
fine job they did with the week.
I had 150 miles on the TR3A when it came time to leave so towed it up.
Tuesday afternoon Jim Henningson and I ran the Funkhana and did well on the
first run, but I locked up in reverse on the second run...
With an hour or so of working with the linkage and removing the antivibration
button and spring I was back on the road.
Wednesday it rained in the afternoon and I got ready to go to the go cart
races -- which were really fun. I'd never been to an inside track with
electric carts... It rained on the way I noticed water leaking in on my legs,
but wasn't too surprised. It is after all a Triumph.
What I didn't think about at the time was that the relays for the electric
fuel pump, fog lamp, driving light, and headlights were mounted above the
heater/dash support on the driver's side, AND they were mounted such that
water could collect in the relays... had fun go-carting  and went out to the
car and found the fuel pump running with the key off... turned the key on and
the fuel pump went off, headlights were on and off and flickering but the fog
and driving lights were ok. I made it almost out of the parking lot when I
"ran out of gas".  Jere Dotten stopped and a fellow from the host club. We hot
wired the fuel pump from the o/d relay and instead of ice cream, I limped back
to the motel and ate potato chips in the room - bourbon seemed to help the
pain.  I assumed that the ghost of Mr. Lucas had poured water into the relays
just to show me who was boss with the electrics in a TR3.
Thursday morning was really pretty, I helped Ronnie Babbitt install his new
windshield and then we went to Home Depot for more wire and a toggle switch to
better hot wire the fuel pump.  The car ran great that day and Friday at the
panoramic shoot and the two trips I made to the show the car ran really
great.
I working today at replacing the 3 bad relays and mounting them rightside up
or upside down so rain can't collect in them.
I was interesting because there would have only been a problem when driving in
the driving rain and I never do that at home, so it would have happened at
some show sometime -- better now than latter I suppose.
Anyway, it was good to see some old friends and make some new ones, and work
the inevitable bugs out of the rebuild and modifications.
Tom
61 TR3A
62 TR4
73 Stag