Re: 74 spider starter relay

[Scott Fisher <sfisher71@domain.elided>]

--- Michael O'Donnell <odpurple@domain.elided> wrote:
> Of course, the control units all fail and
> have all been bypassed by now.

Some of them quite recently, right, Henrik? :-)

We had Henrik Johannsen, absentee president and
all-around carpetbagger deluxe, over a couple weeks
ago for pizza and commiseration over his occasionally
hard-starting '74 Spider.  Since Henrik's car had only
recently been introduced to Oregon's weather after
many years in the relative dryness of San Francisco,
we figured that something had gotten damp that wasn't
used to getting damp, which is still a good guess, but
we couldn't quite find *what*.

When it came time to leave, the car wouldn't even turn
OVER on the key, and more maddeningly, wouldn't even
turn over when Henrik hot-wired it under the dash (in
spite of exciting blue flashes and that lovely ozone
smell).  We got it to start by the time-honored
tradition of turning the ignition key to "on" (so as
to unlock the wheel and run the fuel pump, etc.), then
Henrik shorted the starter motor with a big
screwdriver.  Vroom!  Fortunately, Dan Sommers (local
Alfa specialist) was able to find and fix Henrik's
problem in a matter of minutes.

In the event that the system in my '74 has not yet
been bypassed, I learned from Henrik that the relay in
question is silver and mounted behind the glovebox.  I
haven't had to look at mine yet, but given what
happened the last time I talked about hard-starting
Spiders on the Digest, I suspect I'll be wiring around
mine one day soon...

--Scott Fisher
  Tualatin, Oregon
Send your FREE holiday greetings online!
http://greetings.yahoo.com

--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided