Last night coming back from a band practice session at a friend's house,
Lucas/PO decide they will let me know that they still have an interest
in making life difficult for the current owner.
The altenator/ignition light in the dash comes on and the dash lights
get very dim, also there is a hint of burning insulation in the air, and
after a microsecond glance around the cockpit I indeed see SMOKE!!! !@#%
So I quickly turn the car and head lights off, before I have a real
problem on my hands. We don't want to re-wire the dash at 2am on the
side of the road.
The smoke was coming from the steering column. I figure it must be
either the headlight switch or the turn signal/high beam switch. So I
pop off the plastic cover around the steering column (BTW it's a '77 MGB).
The brown wire is extremely hot and a lot pliable. So I figure that it
must be the light switch. I pop the light switch apart and clean it up
real good, it was corroded inside pretty bad. Put every thing back
together and I'm on my way. Well I get about 5 miles down the road and
it happens again, more smoke and dim lights etc... So I pull of and
again assault the steering column this time with a schematic of the
electrical system in front of me, we will prevail I say to myself. So I
start chasing wires all over the place, starting with the brown one as
it is the warmest. I chase all of the brown wires that is attached to
the one that goes to the headlight switch. No luck. So I figure it must
be the headlight circuit as I don't have the problem when the headlights
are off.
I start looking at all of the wires associated with the headlights, the
blue wire from the headlight switch that goes to the dimmer/turn-signal
switch is slightly warm. I think to myself what could be in the
headlight dimmer switch that could be a problem. I never did find out
what the problem was but what I done was take out my points file and
filed all of the contacts for the dimmer switch and cleaned them up
thinking it must be corrosion making a high resistance contact. I mosey
on home without further problems, as of yet we will find out tonight
when I leave work if indeed I have solved the problem.
I also no longer have high beams, the switch is in need of being replaced,
I had to put a match between the contacts for the high beams as they
wanted to stay on all the time, it no longer has a detent. The
turn-signal lever that controls the high beams also just sort of floats
in place, atleast the turn signals still work fine. (I wonder when it
will fail also.)
The reason I mentioned the previous owner is that it would not been so
hard to trace some of the wires had they not redone some of the bundle
in their own color scheme.
On a side note not related to wiring problems, where does one find the
O-ring that fits around the jet adjusting screw on a HIF4 carb? This is
the screw that adjusts the richness or leanness of the fuel mixture on
the side of the carb. It is not listed in the parts books that I have,
or I can't seem to locate it. The screw on the front carb keeps backing
out and falling out. I have been tempted to adjust it correctly and
squirt some RTV in the hole, if I can't find and O-ring to fit it.
Thanks for any and all replies,
Bruce...
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