Trying to get the little stuff done before Carlisle. I made up a punch list of small details and finally got back to it today. Tied up the loose wires under the dash and then adjusted the rear brakes, Took a ride around the block to re-seat the shoes (and yeah, the brakes work better now), and up the hill 150 feet from the house she died.

Sputter sputter, stall.

Fuel. She’d start and then die again right away. I figured it had to be my idle cutoff solenoid again, since that’s what’s sidelined me the last two times this happened. The wire seemed fine though. I took it off, put it back on… It was starting to rain.

Long story longer: no love. So I put gas in her, pulled the cover off the rear package to check the fuel filter, pulled the fuel line to make sure the pump hadn’t died. Only then did the neighbor retrieve a volt meter so we could see if the solenoid was getting volts. And it suddenly was, and off I went.

So…

While laid up I had put on my flashers and noticed that my left headlight was flashing with them. Weird. I had already noticed that the right headlight was missing the high beam; figured I was due for a new headlight. But this flasher business was very strange.

Once home (after replacing the wire ends for that pesky solenoid and soldering them), I checked my beam one more time and noticed that now the right side parking light was high-beaming. Every time I turned on the high beam switch, the left headlight got bright and the right parking light did too!

I pulled out my “trunk” floor, removed my tool box and right there, before my wondering eyes, was the answer to my flashing headlight mystery, my parking light high beam and the missing headlight high beam.

The right hand tie rod had sawed through the high beam wire and frayed the insulation off my parking light lead. The high beam signal was hitting the parking light wire. I had no idea there was a big voltage boost too; I thought it was just a different element that got brighter. Hah.

And so. Being me, I butt-joined the broken ends with a heat-shrink wire thing. Taped it all back up. Grabbed the best thing I could find to replace the broken/missing wire tie: a plumbing hanger. Won’t rust, is made of metal, so it won’t break either.

Installed a battery hold down while I was there–for auto-cross purposes, of course.

AND found that steering link was loose–the jamb nut on the inner tie rod end had backed out; there was a bit of wobble in the arm. Big relief, as I had felt that bit of give when I changed the bearings a few weeks back and thought maybe a ball joint was starting to go.

Onward. (I hope).