[Spridgets] History - Spridget electrical "fire" & want a Pasty?

[Tim Collins]

>Guy R Day wrote:
>Glad everything has turned out OK and thank Tim for reminding us all 
>that Lucas, the Prince of Darkness never sleeps and chews on wiring 
>insulation as either flossing or as a daily snack.


Since Guy mentioned Mr. Lucas, I'll add to this story. Sometime 
before I bought the Sprite, a previous owner experienced an ignition 
switch failure (hard to believe, I know, but not unlike current GM 
news!) His solution was to wire in a push button to engage the 
starter since the "ignition on" part of the switch still worked. (I 
believe the dried out electrical tape he used was behind the smoke 
incident from my previous post.)

When I restored the car I attempted to rehab the ignition switch and 
thought I had fixed it. However, while out on one of the early maiden 
voyages, the car suddenly quit as I was driving along. I coasted to 
the curb - fortunately the power steering/power brakes still worked & 
the air bag wasn't much of an issue. At that point I didn't know why 
the engine stopped. After a few minutes I thought about trying the 
ignition switch and it started right up!

I issued a recall on the switch, bought a replacement from one of the 
vendors, and installed the switch. Installation  wasn't without 
challenges, however, since the terminals on the new switch were in a 
different order than the old one. After figuring out which were which 
the switch has worked well. (And, I shouldn't have just written that line!)

Finally, in the 1970's people didn't carry around cameras like they 
do today so no pictures were taken of the smoke, Guy And, the reason 
I was able to park directly in front of the theatre door was that the 
idea of Handicap parking spaces (or "cripple parking" as my 92 y.o. 
Father-in-law calls them) hadn't reached the Copper Country yet.

Times have changed: camera everywhere, handicap parking, and ignition 
switch recalls galore!

Tim