Just my 2-bits worth - after seeing all the complaints re electrical
problems in Spitfires I have these comments. When my son and I got our '71
GT-6 home, vertually none of the electrics worked. A day in the driveway
with a hand full of crimps and the voltmeter cured 90% of the problems. The
remainder were a case of carefully (using fine grit sandpaper) cleaning the
bullet connectors, lightly crimping the female portion to provide a tighter
connection or cleaning up very dirty gound connections.
None of this takes anything but careful workmanship ie you don't have to be
an electrical engineer to cure the problems.
In my 30 odd years of being in the mobile radio business I have seen all
manner of horror stories in the form of botched electrical systems. Most of
these were the result of the owner or sometimes a well meaning mechanic, who
had done major surgery in order to overcome a minor bad connection in the
system.
I suggest that all of you who are having electrical system problems to back
off, take a good look at the overall system visually and then start at the
battery post connections and clean and reconnect every connection you can
find. I realize that to find all of them you need to tear into the interior
of the car but slow and easy will get you through it. Once you have the
bullet connector polished (male and female ends) cover them with a light
coating of silicon grease (or lacking that plain vasiline works) before
reconnecting them.
If you do these few minor tasks even a bit at a time I think that you will
find that Bro. Lucas was not so bad after all - even if he can't make a
computor leak oil like someone suggested a while back.
Just the observations from an old timer
John Tones (with son Robb)
69 MK 3 / 71 GT-6 / 78 1500
|