02/14/11

Frerbrurary 14, 2011 There is a small chance that I might be slightly dumb. Saturday John and I met at the shop to work on B-210s. He was already there working on his when I pulled up. I gave him his license plates and windshield sticker and began to think about Lil' Wiggly. Of course with Lil' Wiggly parked around the side of the shop I was having trouble a) motivating myself and 2) communicating with John while in the vicinity of the car. In between helping John with his car, which I didn't mind because of the aforementioned lack of motivation, I did manage to figure out that the two relays in the box behind the battery were superfluous. Or so I thought, but I'll get to that later. Eventually we rolled Lil' Wiggly around front and I got cracking on it. I replaced the negative battery cable and disconnected all of the headlight stuff: the switch, both headlights, the dimmer switch, and... um, anything else I could find easily and disconnect. I couldn't find a headlight relay in the wiring diagram so I'm assuming there isn't one after all. I may go back and trace the wires again just to be sure. Anyhoo, with all the headlight stuff disconnected, I hooked up the battery. It wouldn't budge the starter. I checked the voltage and ready 10.4 volts. I hooked up the charger on 20 amps and went to help John with his car some more. After a little while I checked on the charge. 11.4 volts. I kicked the charger up to 60 amps and watched as the voltage came up to 11.7 volts. We decided it was time for a new battery. I took off to O’Reilley’s and bought a new one. We installed it and tried the key again. Eventually the car started and ran. The “dead short” wierdness of the last time we ran the car was gone and the starter sounded much better. Trouble was, there was no power to the dash or anything on the “Run” circuit of the wiring harness. when we shut the engine down and turned the key to “Run” there were no idiot lights. No charge light. No brake light. No oil pressure light. Nothing. The actual brake lights at the ass end of the car worked, but not the warning light for the e-brake. The radio would come on but it runs from the “Accessory” position of the ignition switch. John yanked his ignition switch and we tried it. It “worked” exactly the same as mine so it isn't the switch. I began to get frustrated. I do not want to rewire this whole car. We decided to park it until next Saturday and have a fresh look at it. We re-parked Lil' Wiggly, closed up the shop, and I followed John to my house. Halfway there I realized what was different this time from last, other than all the headlight gear being disconnected. Yep, those two relays in the box behind the battery. So, hopefully one or the other of them is in the “Run” circuit and feeds the fuse box, dash, and whatever else wasn't working. Oh yeah, we checked the fuse box and nine of the twelve fuses were dead with the key on. Only the constant and “Accessory” fuses were energized. So, we’ll test this new theory Saturday and hopefully will finally be able to get Lil' Wiggly back on the road. Back to the narrative. After dropping Ms. Clio at my house, I rode with John to his. We ate somewhere... um, yeah. I don't remember where. Oh right! Between dropping off Ms. Clio and picking up Fifi at his house, we stopped at his inspection station and got his B-210 inspected then ate at Joe’s Pizza and Pasta. At his house, I hopped in Fifi and headed home. OK, remember a few weeks ago when I got raped by U-Haul and we went to pick up the dining room table and chairs? Well, while at the guy’s place, we dropped off a deacon’s bench to be refinished. It was ready to be picked up Saturday. Mom called the guy and asked if it was too late to come get it. It was not. She and I took Fifi, some rope, and some blankets to go get it. I loaded it in the truck and didn't look too closely at it. I knew I'd be disapp... no, never mind. I'm not going to get into it except to say, “We expected a professional refinish and got a handyman job.” So, with the bench in the back, mom and I headed home. We stopped at Niester’s for some German food, because that’s what you do. Eventually we got home and I crashed out. I'll tell y'all about Sunday tomorrow.