[Shotimes] interesting electrical bug

[Jason Hartberger]

Ran into an interesting problem on the way home from the exchange today. 
I noticed when I shifted out of park that the shift interlock was very 
stubborn and I had to push my brake pedal in a ways before it worked. No 
biggie. I noticed, however, that while I was backing up, my brake lights 
weren't coming on at all. Having had dealings with the brake light 
sensor switch before, I figured it was simply either too loose or had 
fallen off the pedal somehow. No big deal, I said, I'll fix it when I 
get home. So I get to the next light, one intersecting a major road in 
the area, Hampton Blvd outside of the Sub gate (for those in the know). 
Then I did probably the dumbest thing I could have at the time: I 
shifted into park.

What had happened was that one of the wires (the positive, I'm gonna 
guess, from the shower of sparks it produced when I touched some steel 
with it)(zapped the **** out of me, too heh) had broken off outside the 
metal prong that's on the end of it, so the wire end was still firmly 
attached to the switch but the wire was just hanging free. Crap. I can't 
shift out of park to save my life, and the light turns green. I turn my 
hazards on and tell people to go around. Then I get out of the car and 
get my flashlight to try to get at the switch when I realize my 
flashlight broke into little pieces when I threw it in the car when I 
had bent one of my control arms in the back from being a friggin' idiot. 
Crap. Why does this stuff *always* happen at night?

I end up using the LED lights on my phone for a flashlight (fortunately, 
my phone, a Sanyo VM4500, has 4 really bright white LCDs for that 
purpose), and with a set of wire cutter/strippers, a spool of 12ga wire 
I for some reason happened to have in my trunk, and a dremel (with power 
inverter), I got to work. Keeping in mind that my door now opens into 
oncoming traffic, and it's one lane, and if I get hit there is no way in 
hell I'm gonna survive - my head would get taken right off - I drill a 
hole in each little tab on the switch with my dremel, slot the 12ga wire 
through (it fits perfectly, strangely enough lol) and hook it through, 
take the wire from the car and splice it in with the other side. Voila! 
who needs that stupid connector anyway.

So, the moral of the story is: anybody have a spare brake pressure 
sensor connector handy?

Jason

and I thought 6 months of electronics training was a complete waste...




-- 
Jason Hartberger, AT3 USN
USS Theodore Roosevelt CVN-71
AIMD/IM-3 CASS