Today was the warmest day we've had in San Diego in some time. This
evening, about an hour ago (7pm), I had an errand to run. A check to put in
the mail to Joe Curry for the tach I just bought from him (thanks again,
Joe!) and a deposit to make at the bank.
The temperature outside was about 67 degrees. As I made my way towards the
freeway, I glanced up just long enough to take in the beautiful night sky
and the bright stars above. Taking a deep breath of satisfaction on my
first night out with Mrs. Jones, I was reminded of how I felt when I took my
first Spitfire out for the first time at night back in 1976 when I was 16.
Man, it felt SO good. The feeling REALLY took me back -- seeing the freshly
cleaned and reassembled guages illuminated in the dark; glancing over my
shoulder to see the warm red glow of the taillights (the only car I've ever
owned where you can see the taillights while you're driving), the purring
exhaust note; the cool night air, etc.
Then, I noticed something sort of funky at the stoplight right before the
freeway.
When the car was idling, the lights all went very dim, even at 1,000 RPM,
but they brightened up and seemed fine at about 1,400. Oh-oh. I had a few
silent, yet choice words for my Lucas generator and voltage regulator, the
light turned green, the lights were bright and I was on my way. On the
freeway, I hit speeds up to 75 MPH, but didn't want to sustain 4,500 RPM for
long, so I dropped back to about 65 MPH and enjoyed the ride into town,
checking those stars, along with the rest of the traffic, on occasion. As I
exited the freeway, I noticed the same thing with the lights dimming again.
Loose fan belt? Maybe, but I sure didn't think so...
At the second light after I exited the freeway, where I was in the front of
the line in a left turn lane at a major intersection, I suffered a complete
and TOTAL electrical failure, after I let the RPM dip too low. The left
arrow had just turned green for me and BLIP! No idiot lights, no
headlights, no ignition -- no ANYTHING. S%$! "C'Mon, Mrs. Jones! Speak to
me, baby!" I knew I couldn't stay there and as I opened my door to begin
pushing the car out of the intersection, horns started to blare from several
cars back. I had to push slightly uphill and at that moment, I was VERY
grateful that the Spitfire is such an easy car to PUSH.
A good samaritan in a Jeep stayed behind me at I pushed the car uphill and
safely to the curb on the street perpendicular to where I had been. He
offered to give me a push, but knowing the massive body damage that would
result, I politely declined. Realizing that I after driving 350 miles with
no major problems, I had gotten rather cocky and didn't have my cell phone.
What's worse, I didn't have a flashlight or any tools with me, either. I
did NOT want to leave the car there, open and exposed. By the same token,
my wife was out for the evening and I knew that my two boys at home would
begin to worry if I didn't check in soon.
Opening the bonnet, the first thing I checked were the fuses. I had two
spares, fortunately. Unfortunately, that wasn't the problem. All the fuses
were fine. I wriggled the wires connected to the generator, solenoid,
battery and coil. Still, nothing. I felt around and checked the ignition
wires behind the dash. All connected. The wiring harness is very recent,
installed by the PO not too long ago. I've seen messy wiring before, but my
wires are all orderly (as much as possible, anyway) and good. I was
beginning to stress a bit, muttering, "think, THINK" under my breath, when a
second Jeep pulled up in front. A young man got out of the passenger side
and asked if I needed a hand. I explained the problem and he had no clue
whatsoever. Since the fuses were fine and nothing had burned up, I thought
that the battery connection just HAD to be the culprit. I wriggled the
positive lead around on the battery post again and --voila! We had
ignition.
Greatly relieved, I profusely thanked Corey -- and his father who had
stopped to lend a hand. If push came to shove, I would have used their cell
phone to call a tow truck.
As I pulled away from the curb, I gave the samaritans a wave and a toot from
the dual note horn, pulled into the post office, dropped Joe's check in the
mail after climbing over my passenger seat and headed off to the bank.
Happy again, and adding "flashlight" to the tool items I want to begin
carrying in the trunk. The cool night air felt good, since pushing the car
30 yards or so generated a sufficient amount of body heat. After getting
into some strange contortions at the drive up ATM machine, I've decided that
drive throughs in my RHD Spitfire are a thing of the past. I also took note
that my lights no longer dimmed at the intersections. At 1,000 RPM, the
charging system, now reconnected to the battery, was doing its thing
properly. Although they dip to the left, must say that I was very pleased
with the performance of what I'm assuming are the original Lucas sealed beam
headlights. Bright enough that I won't be ditching them for halogens
anytime soon! I'll try to aim them a bit better for right hand roads, but I
was duly impressed.
Alls well that ends well.
Question. I've noticed (even at night or when its cool) that my temperature
gets into the top third region of the scale when I'm idling at a stop for
any length of time. I seem to recall this as being normal. While driving
at speed, the temp rarely gets past the first tick of the center position.
Best wishes,
Jeff in San Diego
'67 RHD Spitfire Mk3 aka "Mrs. Jones"
Jeff's Classic '67 Spitfire Mk3 site
http://www.ohms.com/spitfire/spitfire.shtml
home of the NEW Totally Triumph Auction
"By Triumph enthusiasts, for Triumph enthusiasts"
http://www.ohms.com/cgi-bin/TRauction.cgi
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