Nice evening drive, in spite of the adventure . . .
As far as your temp goes, I'm certainly no expert on colling systems. All I
can say is that I have a rebuilt engine and rebuilt radiator. My temp gauge
has never gone above a tick or so to the right of center, and in fact
usually stays left of center. I have never had an overheat problem, even in
Saturday's 80 degree stop and go San Francisco traffic.
Check your radiator out.
>From: "Jeff McNeal" <jmcneal@ohms.com>
>Reply-To: "Jeff McNeal" <jmcneal@ohms.com>
>To: "Spitfire List" <spitfires@autox.team.net>
>Subject: Night moves (long)
>Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2000 20:31:05 -0800
>
>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
>
>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>
>
|