Something's going on here - the last two electrical
problems Redcar has experienced have been diagnosed
while in transit. First the loose steering wheel->bad
ground->intermittent horn, now fixed, daren happy, and
now this;
July fourth was a beautiful night in the Bay Area,
so I thought to log some miles looping the county, scoping
out the fireworks & watching the sun set. My loop took
me up 880 & over Mission to 680, where I planned on
heading south along the hills. No sooner than I had hit
the on-ramp to 680S tho, Redcar sputtered, missed,
backfired, and then collected herself & motored on. It
sounded like the functional equivalent of someone coughing,
hoiking up a loogie and then spitting. Needless to say
it concerned me. I began to wonder about the ability to
make it home when she did it again a few miles up, and
then onto Calaveras she completely cut out & I had to
coast into a parking lot. Being less than a mile for
the haven of my garage, I decided to try to lope home,
and much to my surprise she fired right up like no
problem, and we sprinted to the house. Late & tired I
opted to sleep on it. The only clues I had was that it
would idle better than it would accelerate (indicating
to me, a fuel delivery problem), and that I had just
changed the fuel filters. Hmmmmm.
Fast forward to last night. Michael Mulroney is in
town & wants to do dinner, and would like for me to
bring Redcar so he can compare it to his H-prod Bugeye.
I figured it a good oppourtunity to try & get this
problem to crop up in the daylight, which it did, a few
miles down on 880 in rush hour traffic. I couldn't pull
over to see what's what there, so I coaxed her back to
life & continued on slowly. It had now gotten to when
it happened, the more I tried to accelerate the more she
cut out, so I was firmly convinced it was fuel delivery.
Motoring on to the 880/680 x-change, an Alfa Spider came
up on me. We wicked it up a bit, and then Redcar decided
to DIE COMPLETELY, much to my chagrin. Thankfully the Alfa
person said nothing as I coasted to the shoulder. And
then I heard it. Nothing.
At first it wasn't apparent to me that what I was
hearing was the absence of sound, but then a quick glance
at the position of the switches on the dash and I
subconsciously realized that I should be hearing the
fuel pump. And I wasn't.
Without unbuckling I reached behind the fuel pump
switch and felt the wires. One side cool and secure,
the other hot and loose, which when concerned with
wires, is not a Good Thing. But, upon touching the hot
wire, the fuel pump began burbling merrily away.
Problem solved, and I didn't even get out of the car.
The remainder of the evening was very nice,
benchracing over Tied House dinners while gazing
outside at the Magic Arrow "race" cars, soon to be a
little more reliable.
cheers-
Daren "Commuting improves the breed, too" Stone
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