[TR] a peculiar electrical puzzle

Jim Muller jimmuller at rcn.com
Tue Sep 1 15:38:51 MDT 2009


Ah, the joys of running a 40-year-old car.

Several times this summer, including today, I had a strange 
experience in the GT6.  I turn it on, it starts up, and a puff of 
smoke comes from the left side of the "control head" bulge just ahead 
of the steering wheel where the turn signal stalk goes in.  It 
doesn't smell particularly like smoke and it looks white like steam.  
Today even the turn signal relay started clicking.  I flipped the 
signal stalk to the left in case it was accdidentally on to the 
right, but it didn't stop and the indicator started blinking.  So I 
flipped it over to the right, and the indicator stopped blinking 
briefly though the clicking continued, and after a second or so the 
indicator began to blink normally as the steaming stopped.  When I 
flipped it back to off everything stopped and all worked properly 
after that.

Now, it rained heavily for several days due to Tropical Storm Danny 
but yesterday and today were dry.  Anyway, no water would get into 
the control head.  The carpets weren't wet, and I drove the car 
yesterday and had no problem.  Maybe the flasher unit itself could 
have gotten wet, maybe.

The last time this happened I took the trim off and examined the 
wiring and turn signal mechanism.  It looked normal, no heating or 
burn marks, no sign of anything untoward.  But it is as if water had 
worked its way in or a spider had built a web, something had created 
a rogue connection.  Then with resistance heating the electrical 
transmission path would go away.

I can't fix anything that isn't obviously broke.  Danged if I can 
find a cause.  Have any of you ever experienced something like this?

-- 
Jim Muller
jimmuller at rcn.com
'80 Spitfire, '70 GT6+


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