The Webmaster Zone

Had my first real breakdown a few weekends ago in Seattle. I had previously removed the radio and the frest air vent for a clean and restore and noticed a lot of dodgy wiring coming off the headlight switch, so I stripped and spliced the wires properly (although I should really solder them). It looks like there was a short at some point in the past because the wires for the rear parking lights were half melted and corroding. After I had done that I noticed the ignition warning lamp was on. I did some tests and determined that the generator was completely dead, no output. I am not sure what triggered it, perhaps doing the wiring, or maybe the engine bay cleaning I did a few weekends back got some water where it shouldn't have been even though I put plastic bags around all the electrical bits. This all transpired on Sunday night and I certainly couldn't make it back to Vancouver on battery power with the headlights on so on Monday morning I drove down to the British Auto Center in south Seattle. Swapped my generator for a rebuilt unit and put it in with a new oil gauge flex hose as the engine cleaning revealed the source of a few oil leaks. Fired up the car and all seemed well, the warning lamp was off. Shut off the ignition and went back under the hood to find smoke coming out of the new generator and the smell of burning plastic!! I cursed my luck and pulled the leads off the generator, got a healthy spark off the D terminal. That's not right, I thought, the control box is supposed to shut off that terminal when the car's off. So I had a chat with the fellows manning the counter and verified that the control box was probably toast. Bought a new one, thankfully it wasn't very expensive, and prayed that whatever fried the control box and generator wasn't going to do the same to the new units, and that I had pulled the leads off the generator fast enough to save it! Carefully put it all together with the new control box and all seemed well. It got me back to Vancouver anyway! This weekend I tested the output of the generator and it seems OK. Some pics from helping my friend with his 79 MGB: