Well, I went back and picked up the car this morning. As I was mulling
over the evening's events (tossing and turning in bed), I think I came up
with the Scenario.
Two days before I had "fixed" the passenger-side parking/turn signal by
reversing two of the wires (it had been a REALLY bright parking light and
a huh? turn signal. Don't ask about the driver-side parking/turn
signal). I fixed the side marker on the same side at this point.
As usual, while working on this mess 'o' wires (all painted green by the
previous owner), I randomly actuated the horn a couple times.... the
horn's body being hot and insulated from the car body with a plastic washer,
touching any ground to the horn sets it off. Since this makes me jump up
and bump my head on the bonnet, and I don't believe in retrophrenology, I
disconnected the horn wires........
And of course failed to re-connect them. See last week's message to
Scott Fisher about "why is there a cauldron-bubbling noise behind the
driver's seat" and etc. for hints in following the next paragraph...
It's possible that going around the corner shorted the horn circuit to
the headlamp circuit, or shorted something directly to ground in that
whole arrangment. This loaded down the system and fried the switch. Is
there a law which prevents headlights from being fused?? Anyway, when I
opened the hood the short was jostled loose and the headlights came back
on... the switch was melted into the "on" position. Then when I removed
the switch it broke the circuit to EVERYTHING and panel lights as well as
all exterior lights went out.
Unfortunately I have been unable to attack this problem as I took a day
trip to Washington DC. Not bad, and made better by seeing a >nice< MGA
MkI on the George Washington Memorial Parkway, near Mount Vernon. Also
lots of rubber-bumper Bs tooling around.
Warning: D&m'd Present Owner Trick follows...
To the person who asked why the switch was new... when I first got the
car we didn't understand why pushing the TOP IN was OFF and the BOTTOM IN
was ON. Since the headlight switch was the only one which worked then,
we rebuilt it backwards. That one doesn't seem to want to go back to the
Lucas design. If I can find it I'll plop it in temporarily and check the
circuit... (AFTER I find out what this one bare wire is all about).
Oh, and to everyone else traveling in Virginia: the Radar Detector
Detectors are out there and they >do< work.
Whadda weekend.
John M. Trindle | jtrindle@tsquare.com | Tidewater Sports Car Club
'73 MGB DSP | '69 Spitfire E Stock | '88 RX-7 C Stock
Home Page: http://www.widomaker.com/~trindle
"Cannon's Comment:
If you tell the boss you were late for work because you
had a flat tire, the next morning you will have a flat tire."
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