Richard,
You may be onto something with the wiring suggestion. I might have
immediately dismissed it, because all the wires are new and I was very careful
about the installation of them, but an incident while driving the other day
may have in fact compromised the switch wiring itself. The (exceedingly
heavy) gearshift knob apparently wasn't tightened down as well as it could
have been and pulled free of the lever while I was shifting, pulling out about
5" of wire in the process. I thoguht everything was okay when I stuffed the
wiring back into the lever, but I can't be positive.
My only fear is doing damage to the O/D while testing your theory, so I guess
I'll check the oil level first, then rig up the idiot light, or I might even
just connect a multimeter and lay it on the dash to check for varying
resistance while driving.
Best wishes,
Jeff
----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Gosling
To: 'Jeff McNeal' ; spitfires@autox.team.net
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 12:43 AM
Subject: RE: Funky D-type O/D
Jeff,
Unless you are leaking significant amounts of gearbox oil (and I suspect
you'd have spotted that by now!) I doubt lack of oil is the problem - my
O/D
has continued to work fine when I have been long past due a top-up (come to
think of it, it's way overdue now...), so a slight loss should not be the
cause of your problem.
I had a similar problem, and it turned out to be a dodgy home-made O/D
wiring harness made by the PO (who converted Daffy to O/D) which was
cutting
out occasionally. Since Mrs. Jones has been so impeccably re-built I doubt
you will have that, but I would still probably start with the wires and
switches as a possible cause. I guess you could confirm this for sure by
rigging up a temporary idiot light with a wire leading to the solonoid,
which will show you if the cutting out coincides with a break in the
electrical supply. I suggest this because intermittent electrical problems
like this never show up when testing in the garage!
I agree with previous posts that the O/D can be slow when the engine is
cold
- it can take over 5 seconds to engage on Daffy when I have only just set
off, but once all is warmed up it engages pretty much instantly when I
flick
the switch.
Richard & Daffy
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