Well, only two days of driving after the clutch ordeal and the water pump
springs a leak. The small drain hole at the bottom of the pully leaked so
much I had to keep adding water to the rad. So, I pulled the water pump
off my parts car and I'm back in business.
Just hours after that my wife calls me on the cell phone (a Spitfire
required safety item) to report that she is stuck on the side of the
freeway out of gas. The guage had been reading empty since it was back on
the road and I have not had time to fix it yet. She thought she had more
gas than she did. So, I fired up the TSV and delivered her some gas. Upon
finding her on the freeway she said that the hazards were not working and
neither were the blinkers. What else could go wrong, the tires fall off?
Later when we got the car home I checked the hazards and blinker problem.
When I first got this car the hazards worked fine, but the red hazard light
on the dash did not blink, but the green blinker light did (with the
hazards in use). I thought the hazard light was just burned out and never
gave it a second thought. When I started troubleshooting this problem I
found that only the hazard light should blink and not the green blinker
light. I never realized that the hazard and blinker circuits are so
closely related. In fact it all seems to come together at the hazard
switch. I ended up removing the hazard switch and it ohmed out bad. I
took it apart and cleaned all the contacts very well and wala, the hazards
AND the blinkers work fine now. Now when I turn on the hazard lights, only
the red hazard light on the dash blinks and not the green blinker light.
This was my first realization that it never worked right from the beginning.
My point to all this is if you have problems in this area I would highly
suspect this seemingly unimportant switch. It is critical to the operation
of both the hazards and the blinkers. And it is very easy to disassemble
the switch (once you get it out of the dash) and clean the contacts inside.
There is no need to get a new one unless it is in really bad shape.
Sorry for the book, just trying to help out in advance if I can, and share
in my frustration lately. Current status of the Spit, my wife is out
driving it right this minute, with cell phone in hand.
David Gates
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