Well, after last weeks total electrical loss, I finally had
time to hunt it down and fix it. In recap, I lost all electrical
in a Midget 1500, ran out of the car for thirty seconds at a
bank and when I returned, nothing. Silence. I got a boost and
drove it home with no lights, half my gauges, and a friends
jeep leading the way that had working headlights.
Anyways, I had already picked up a new negative ground strap,
because I had determined it was a little funky when I first
broke down. So I ripped that out and installed the new one.
Although I hadn't noticed when I took the battery out to
charge it, there was a fair bit of grunge gathering around the positive
battery post as well, all in and around the tightening screw. The
bolt that the tightening nut rides on was actually corroded to
half it's thickness in the middle. Ouch.
Didn't notice that the first time, so I hopped into the
"other" car and ran back to Canadian Tire for a positive cable. A
half hour and a few bucks later, I had a new positive cable as
well. I cleaned up the connections around the area, coil, etc,
and installed it.
A quick checked showed that the headlights worked bright
and clear, so I fired it up again. Worked like a
charm... drove fine. 14.5 volts at the battery when running,
so my alternator was working.
Lone bug, my gauges, signals, and brake lights were still
dead. Ungh.
Took a lot of studying the schematic, but it seemed like all
the broken gauges and lights ran off fuse #3, so I went there
to investigate. As soon as I stuck my probe in, it all started
working. Turned out that my fusebox has a really weak grip that
doesn't always make a good connection. Ungh.
Evidently, the car died because of bad battery connections. But
sitting in the parking lot puzzling it over, I checked the
fuses by spinning them with my finger to see the steel wire glint
in the streetlight. And that little action broke the connection to
the fuses, and that's why I had no gauges after being jump
started to come home. Double ungh.
All seems better now, but I won't be confident for a few more
trips. Seemed too easy, at least the battery cable replacements.
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Trevor Boicey 1992 Celica GT (95% of the driving I do)
Computer Engineer 1975 MG Midget (95% of the repairs I do)
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