[TR] Interesting drive home

[TERRY SMITH]

On the way to work this morning, the charging light intermittently blinked on and off.  Fine.  I'll run the battery and get home tonight.

On the way home, the charge light was on all the time.  Sometimes the voltmeter (not ammeter) showed 15 volts, sometimes 12, even when the light was on.  Weird.

Then in Boscawen (pronounced Boskowine here), I suddenly had no gas pedal and started smelling burning insulation.  Uh oh.

Shut it down, pulled over, popped the hood.  Yeesh!  The long link rod assembly had come loose and dropped...onto the positive battery post on the starter and was touching the block to boot, so shorting something beejeeepus.  Everything was hot so I broke up a plastic hanger to get it loose.  The link rod was white from heat.  This left me impressed with the engineering design.  Well, maybe not. 

Using a rag, I was able to reconnect the link rod wondering just what damage had been done. 

But the car started up fine.  Charge light went off for five miles, then on again.  12 plus volts on the voltmeter, so running on battery.


Got home fine.  Lesson learned:  adjust linkage rods using locktite from now on.  So, this weekend, will tune the linkages and try to find the charging problem.  Wires seem fine from the generator, so it could be the generator.  I've already burned one of those new, lighter generators when I ran it without charging the low battery first.  Didn't request a replacement because could very well be me.  If it's the generator again, I'll probably have my old style generator re-built and stay with that. 

Happy 4th, everyone!

Terry Smith, '59 TR3A TS 58667, which is almost, situationally, a daily driver.
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