Ah, the joys of running a 40-year-old car.
Several times this summer, including today, I had a strange
experience in the GT6. I turn it on, it starts up, and a puff of
smoke comes from the left side of the "control head" bulge just ahead
of the steering wheel where the turn signal stalk goes in. It
doesn't smell particularly like smoke and it looks white like steam.
Today even the turn signal relay started clicking. I flipped the
signal stalk to the left in case it was accdidentally on to the
right, but it didn't stop and the indicator started blinking. So I
flipped it over to the right, and the indicator stopped blinking
briefly though the clicking continued, and after a second or so the
indicator began to blink normally as the steaming stopped. When I
flipped it back to off everything stopped and all worked properly
after that.
Now, it rained heavily for several days due to Tropical Storm Danny
but yesterday and today were dry. Anyway, no water would get into
the control head. The carpets weren't wet, and I drove the car
yesterday and had no problem. Maybe the flasher unit itself could
have gotten wet, maybe.
The last time this happened I took the trim off and examined the
wiring and turn signal mechanism. It looked normal, no heating or
burn marks, no sign of anything untoward. But it is as if water had
worked its way in or a spider had built a web, something had created
a rogue connection. Then with resistance heating the electrical
transmission path would go away.
I can't fix anything that isn't obviously broke. Danged if I can
find a cause. Have any of you ever experienced something like this?
--
Jim Muller
jimmuller@rcn.com
'80 Spitfire, '70 GT6+
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