Randall Young wrote:
>
> > The Prince of Darkness has hit. 1956 TR3 with only a thousand miles on it
> > since a rebuild. Starts and runs great, battery gets charged by the
> > generator. Turn the halogen lights on at night and run down the
> > road and it
> > works fine. Come to a stop, car idles at 600 rpm, lights dim and about 1
> > minute later the whole electrical system shuts down. No power to lights,
> > starter, etc. Wait about 5 minutes and it restores itself, starts
> > right up.
> > Any ideas?
>
> Do the horns work when everything else is shut down ? If so, I would be
> most suspicious of the control box. Next time it happens, hop out with your
> handy voltmeter (you DO carry a DVM?) and check for 12v to ground at both
> the A and A1 terminals. If one has power and the other doesn't, the control
> box is definitely bad.
I'm inclined to agree with Randall. If the control box were working well, it
would simply close the current limit relay and
enable the generator to produce whatever current the generator could create at
idle. If there were a load in excess of
output, battery voltage would gradually drop, rather than shut off suddenly.
The five-minute wait indicates that something is
overheating and will operate when cool. The obvious culprit under those
conditions is the control box, perhaps in concert
with some corroded terminals in the battery circuit or the grounds. The only
other possibility which comes to mind is some
serious resistance in the power circuit to the ignition switch, so that as
battery voltage drops at idle because of the high
load, current draw heats up a bad connection in that wire.
One way to help check this problem is to raise the curb idle to 850-900 and see
if that changes the time period in which the
problem occurs. If it does, it certainly is related to decreasing battery
voltage and increasing current draw, which then
could be either a problem with control box, wiring to the ignition switch, or
both.
Cheers.
--
Michael D. Porter
Roswell, NM (yes, _that_ Roswell)
[mailto:mporter@zianet.com]
Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's within walking distance.
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