I thought it couldn't happen to me - I was wrong. You have been warned.
I have often looked at the results of a bad decision that some Leyland
engineer made in the GT6+: that of routing the throttle and heater
control cables over the positive terminal of the battery. Now, there's
a protective cover around the cables, and a cover on the terminal, but
it's just begging for trouble. Mine never gave me any.
Until today. See, I made the mistake of disturbing the setup last night
when I was checking the timing. Apparently I didn't put it quite right,
because this afternoon (after driving for about an hour, I might add), I
smelled something hot
decided it was electrical
noticed that the ammeter was reading solid +20
noticed white smoke billowing out of the bonnet vents
Sigh. Pull over, kill the engine, put on the hazards, grab the
extinguisher. Luckily, that all seemed to stop the current flow (I
don't completely understand why). I carefully looked in all the holes
to see if there was actually fire (there wasn't) before deciding
whether to pop the bottle or raise the bonnet.
Up comes the bonnet, and it was immediately obvious from the melted
insulation on the choke cable what had happened. No damage, other than
that the choke cable
is now stuck solid; presumably it has either welded itself that way or the
melting insulation has jammed it. Either way, it needs replacing.
It could have been much worse. I went immediately and bought a new positive
cable with a terminal cap that covers completely...
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