Re: 164 electrical witchcraft

[David Rubie <drubie@domain.elided>]

ascher@domain.elided writes:

> while driving through the city today i experienced by far the weirdest
> thing ever with either 164.  I had just driven a pleasant two hours in my
> wounded 164S (rear-ended earlier this week), stopped briefly, and then
> restarted.  when i restarted i tried turning on my lights (always drive
> with my lights on), but nothing happened.  i tried them on and off for a
> while but still nothing.  also, no moon roof power, power windows, f/r
> fog lights; all of these i tried repeatedly too.  radio and climate
> control worked.  the worst was that at this point i'm driving in traffic
> and i watch the water temp gauge start climbing.
[deleted]

The 164 I owned a few years ago used to do this about once a week
until I worked out what it was.

We'd get the car, drive off and realise that the windows/indicators
weren't working and the HVAC was dead.

I'd stop the car, swear and shake my fist etc., start it up and
everything
would be OK.

Turns out that the 164 turns off all the electricals while
starting the car (there are a bunch of relays that switch off
everything so the starter gets all the juice).

On my 164, the key was not quite returning to the "ON" position
from "Start", and therefore wasn't turning everything on.
If you just slightly turned the key back to "ON", everything
would start working again.  I think the detents/return spring
in the starter switch were a bit sad.  Annoyed the livind
daylights out of me, especially during the period where I
thought the electricals were inhabited by a pissed off italian
dead guy who didn't like working Saturdays :-)

dave.

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