re: ELP with my new Alfa!!

["Giller,Bruce C." <bgiller@domain.elided>]

> This
> morning when I started it up, the entire instrument panel (every electronic
> gauge) was dead and the battery light was on!  Driving the car and repeated
> turning on/off of the engine did no good.  I found fuse #7 blown and
> replaced it.  Curiously, the owners manual says this should be a 7.5 amp
> fuse but there was a 20 amp one there.  After replacing with another 20 amp
> (just to be safe in case the manual was wrong) I started the car and the
> instrument panel was still dead.  As soon as I revved the engine, pop, the
> fuse blew again.

	Sounds like the PO has had problems with #7 fuse before since the 7.5
amp fuse has already been replaced with a 20 amp one.  There is some
short in the #7 circuit wiring which needs to be found before you can
drive your Spider safely.  Get a Spider repair manual (IAP has a good
one) that shows the electrical circuits and start your investigation. 
You are lucky that the 20 amp fuse blew instead of having a car fire
when the wiring harness started to melt and burst into flame.  Not a
good practice to replace fuses with a larger amp model.

> Under the right dash there is what looks like maybe the
> A/C evaporator??  There is a drain tube type protrusion coming from just
> north of that and that's where the water was dripping profusely.  I can
> only hope this is an A/C related problem and that maybe there is a drain
> tube cap missing or something simple like that.

	This one is much easier since there should be a drain hose attached to
the evaporator pan.  The hose goes out the body and drains the water
under the car.  The hose might be tucked under the carpet on the
firewall or missing altogether.  Sometimes the hose gets clogged and the
evaporator pan overflows - some compressed air is great to clear out the
hose. 

	Bruce

	'86 Spider
	'73 GTV

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