Technical How things can go wrong !

I took auto shop in High School, and the instructor was adamant that trouble shooting started with the simple stuff. He was always harping on someone for not checking the basics before jumping in on something more complicated.

I've done a lot of stupid things throughout the the years. A recent one was trying to start a bike that usually fired first kick. Kicked that thing time and time again. But that afternoon, it just would NOT fire. I finally gave up and took another bike and spent the whole day thinking about why the first bike wouldn't start. Before I got home I figured out the fancy (aka expensive) new ignition module must have burned out.

I was bummed about that for at least a week when I finally went out to confirm my suspicions. At some point during my diagnosis, I noticed the kill switch was set to "off"... I switched it to "run" and the bike fired first kick.

Now no matter what sort of problem I'm having I always cycle the kill siwtch just to make sure it is set to run before I get myself all wound up about what might be wrong.

What's that saying? "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras".

 

When I worked at a service station we were the AAA vendor and we would get over 100 calls many cold days. We had 2 trucks with a booster system to jump start cars and a wrecker to tow the ones that wouldn't start. I was running the wrecker and went to tow one that wouldn't turn over. It was in a garage so I needed to pull it out because it was a boom style wrecker. I go in the car to take it out of park and it was in Drive. I put it in park, turned the key and it started.

 

I learned very early on in my electrical career when doing troubleshooting, assume nothing. I also quickly learned to discretely ignore any explanation given by the customer beyond the 'what doesn't work' answer as too often they'd mislead you more than help... sometimes to cover up their meddling.

 

me and a buddy installed a 350 into a 57 chevy and cranked the engine . I was standing in front and the engine was running good . I could hear a strange noise , could not figure it out , until I looked down and saw I was standing on the cat's foot .

 

Found a Snap On flat screwdriver in the valley of a SBC one time after I pulled the intake. Handle was a bit chewed up, but not too bad. No telling how long it had been in there.....

 

that was good'un!!!

 

31Vicky with a hemi, You did a hell of a job chasing the problem down! Good on you! Hope your freind took care of you for your time. On a side note my brother inlaw put a new battery in their truck but didn't take off the plastic caps? He's good at math!

 

Is a negative divided by a negative positive or negative?

 

I had a friend who has since passed away, he was big into Munch motorcycles. He ended up with a display bike that was just a frame, engine and rear wheel. He built the bike into a fully finished bike that was in his living room for years, never been run(it was stunning to look at). He had a guy that wanted to buy it for some serious cash. The problem was that being it had never been started, the guy wanted to use it and needed to hear it run but Dave didn't want to start it unless he was sure to get paid, because it wont be new anymore once it started. They made a deal for half down before it ran and full payment after hearing it run. So Dave puts acid in the battery, gas in the tank, oil in the engine and trans. Fires it up and runs it down the street. If you have never seen a Munch look it up, they were custom built using a 4 cylinder car engine. So anyways it is only running on 3 out of the 4 cylinders, he checks for spark, fuel(4 carbs)has fuel at carb and compression on the dead cylinder. has all 3. After a bit of hair pulling starts really looking at things and sees something way down in the throat of the cylinders carb. They had put little rubber balls in the carbs at one time to seal them off and over the years all but one had disappeared. After removal it ran great and they made the deal.

 

How do you jump start a positive ground car?

 

With a good attitude.

 

send it back to England ...

I had several 50-60s MGs when I was younger ( I was sick ) and hated them posive earthed cars , it seamed the only time they would start and run right is when it was foggy out , they must use the fog as part of the circuits ... ( lucas the price of darkness and be home before dark )

 

+ to + - to - then + to - - to +

 

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/77e9fae6-7f2f-4113-8ef2-6d0dcccc8ea9

 

Lucas,
I hope you all know its based on the "smoke" energy system.
Burn the wires, generateurs, regulaters or bulb holders etc and the smoke will come out or leak and it will never work again.
You can actually see this happen quite frequently because its made by lucas.
Its often thought that they hadnt mastered completely the smoke system,
But they did invent and master the "short circuit" .
They were obviously looking for ways for the smoke to go quicker

 

Anybody, nobody, and somebody that's hilarious wow... I once had a 289 that had sat awhile that I swapped a 4 brl. intake onto that started over heating after. I had taken it for a good high speed run one day and it overheated I went through everything I could think of until I actually began to question whether I had installed the manifold gaskets incorrectly It really ticked me off. After a night of carousing with the boys I found myself out of town and had to get to work (several towns away) it was 6 am and I had to be at work at 7. Bombing down the freeway and as usual it overheats a passing trucker sees me steaming at the side of the highway pulls over to offer me some antifreeze as we pop the cap I see small bits of rust in the top tank he has a small magnet on a telescoping handle we pull it out covered in a huge clump of small chunks or rust actually some of them were huge! Must've sat or run for years with only water or something and was just completely full of chunks waiting to clog the rad....but I still pulled the manifold to make absolutely sure.... not my fault after all lol but I had to pull that car off the road and sell that engine as a core because anysomenobody didnt bother to stick A/F in it before parking it!

 

Bought a rebuilt F100 steering box the 31 Ford Land Speed project. I had to reverse it for cowl steering. Internals were excellent. In cleaning the cup grease out of the housing I found a single loose needle bearing. Checked both shaft bearing and no missing needles. Must have been from the box before it on the bench. Shudder to think what would have happened if it lodged in the rack at 200 mph. Would have ruined a good day at Bonneville.
Joe