electrical gremlin bites again (long)

Posted April 3, 201113 yr

Just when I get my 77 running again another electrical problem! Had a harness connector come unplugged that took a week to find. Had Dave rebuild my combo switches. Then I wired up the headlight and parking light harness upgrades from Dave. Took the car out yesterday for a cruise and 5 minutes into it my Z broke down. Was accelerating at a great rate of speed and all of a sudden it was as if I turned the key off! I coasted to the side of the road and parked. I tried the key and nothing, nothing at all! Here we go again I said to myself. I checked a few things I thought it might be and found nothing. Finally I called Hagerty's (free towing) and had it towed to the house. The driver was really cool. Said he hadn't seen a Z car that nice in years. I think he was more bummed than I was. Made me feel good. Anyway, he left and I walked around to the passenger side engine compartment and stood there looking at things for a moment hoping to see something not right. Didn't notice anything. So I turned the ignition to the on position and walked back around to the passenger side and started looking for a bad connection. I started with the fusible links because I had messed with them with the previous electrical problem. When I touched one of the links everything came back on! Why couldn't I have done that when I was sitting on the side of the road waiting for the tow truck? I missed cleaning some corrosion on this link and it came back to bite me. I have since then recleaned all electrical connections that I could get to (again) including harness connectors. Just that little tiny bit of corrosion put me on the side of the road. If it has been awhile since you have cleaned your electrical connections it is time to do it. Especially if you live close to the beach like I do here in Oxnard CA. I consider myself lucky I was able to find the problem and how fast I found it this time. Had to share this one. It was my brother David that helped me find the first electrical problem. Dave from Zs-ondabrain also helped. So did this forum! Thanks for reading this. Hope this helps anyone with simular problems.

Bob

Edited April 3, 201113 yr by rcb280z