<VV> HELP: Apparent Electrical Issue

[kevin nash]

> Message: 5
> Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2013 11:15:23 -0400
> From: Tom Hughes <corvairdad at gmail.com>
> Subject: <VV> HELP: Apparent Electrical Issue
> To: VirtualVairs AA <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAL79L0ZowFurvFQeGBuSUivu8SCnq7Dai3c6FoFabHqt6og3xw at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
> 
> My daughter was driving my ?63 last night. After cruising fine for about 30
> minutes at highway speeds, the car had the simultaneous symptoms of engine
> down on power, headlights dimming, and GEN-FAN light illuminated brightly.
> After about a second everything went normal again, but the problem came
> back about 10 seconds later only to disappear again almost immediately.
> This went on a couple more times until the engine died, the headlights
> stayed off, and the GEN-FAN stayed on. She coasted to the shoulder and her
> sister came and got her. This morning I went to the car expecting to have
> to flat-tow it home, but it started right up and I was able to drive it to
> a safe parking spot about a half-mile away. I?ll go get it after work.
> 
> 
> Heat-related? Would a failing coil give these symptoms? If it?s running
> fine this evening, how do I troubleshoot? What do I check?
> 
> 
> Note this car has a relocated battery with the positive cable running to
> the starter though the interior (i.e. plenty of places where it passes
> through and around metal surfaces). I would think if this cable has an
> intermittent short, there?d be more issues than dimming headlights, but I
> guess it?s something to check.
> 
> 
> Thanks in advance for the assistance.
> -- 
> Tom in Baltimore
> corvairfleet.blogspot.com
> 
> 
 Tom- A failing coil will not display those kind of symptoms, although sometimes (very rarely!) a coil going bad can cause the engine to quit running when warm (I've seen it happen!)the usuall coil failure is for the engine to just quit and never run again until the coil is replaced. What it sounds like to me is a connection somewhere that is marginal, that goes badwhen it gets warm enough- the most likely thing that comes to mind is that multi-pin engine harness connector- I think there are 8 pins on it, and that connector is famous forgoing bad- start there! When my connector failed I was fortunate enough to have the engine die in my driveway, and had no previous symptoms of a problem. Pop that connectorapart, inspect every last connection- they better be clean and shiny and not black! What happened on mine is that corrosion apparently caused the resistance to rise enough on themain hotwire connection that that terminal started getting warm, and then got warm enough to partially melt the plastic case, then the molten plastic got into the connection itself,causing a complete loss of electrical power.Kevin Nash63 turbo, daily driver