> The Spit that will soon go in for a Browns orange and brown paint job is
> acting up again. It blew the fuse for the Horns, fuel gauge and
> temp gauge.
> What was weird is that the tach was intermittent and when it
> dropped to zero
> the ignition light came on? The tach would go back and forth
> from reading OK to
> zero and the light would glow on zero. Now what is up with
> that? Woe is
> me! Replaced the fuse but confidence is low!
Based on that description, I would guess that you have an intermittent short
to ground somewhere in the "green" circuit. I'm assuming the tach is
electronic, meaning it would be powered by the green circuit and would drop
to zero if it lost power. The ignition light effectively compares the
alternator output to the white circuit (on the other side of the fuse that
blew), so it would come on if the "white" voltage were being sucked down by
a short and the alternator was still working.
Sorry, I don't have a Spit schematic handy (nor know what year/model you
have), so I can't make any suggestions for troubleshooting. Shorts are bad
enough, but intermittent ones can be maddening.
One thing you might consider is looking for a self-resetting circuit breaker
that you can use instead of the fuse. Auto parts stores used to sell ones
designed to plug in place of a round fuse, but I don't know if they are
still available. If not, you could use one of the blade type circuit
breakers, and clip leads to temporarily connect it to the fuse block.
Another trick I've used is to connect an old headlight bulb (preferably a
high power one, I keep old H4 bulbs for just this purpose) in place of the
fuse. It will pass enough current to operate most things, but light
brightly when there is a short. The continuous current may make the wire
warm enough that you can feel your way towards the short.
I see that JCW still sells their "short detection kit" as well. I believe
it's basically a flasher to intermittently supply power to the circuit, and
a magnetic compass to detect the varying magnetic field that results from
current flowing through the short.
Good luck !
Randall
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