Desert Gecko wrote:
Automotive electrical is odd at times. I once had no prior warning whatsoever before my battery went kaput, leaving me completely without power and the engine unable to run.
I was driving a Toyota Corolla in moderate early afternoon traffic, in the #2 lane of the I-405 over Sepulveda Pass, one of the busiest spots of the greater Los Angeles freeway system, when my car died and had no electrical power whatsoever. I opened the door and stepped out only to hear some young "lady" creep by honking and yelling at me to turn on my %*!#-ing flashers, which of course I had already tried. Dude behind me in a brown Porsche 928 put on his flashers and kindly stayed behind me alerting and blocking traffic as I pushed my car (slightly downhill, fortunately) to the shoulder. Proves the old joke about the difference between Porsches and porcupines is wrong; not all Porsches have pricks on the inside.
Another time, in a Datsun 710, the voltage regulator stuck wide open (at night, of course) while I was stopped and about to turn right, and it blew out every bulb in the car but the high-beam headlights, dome light, and left blinkers. Yes, it took out a fusible link, but not before the damage was done.
Automotive electrical is odd at times. I once had ... (
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That certainly was an odd situation.
I read that in the early days of cars, the batteries weould die from overcharging because they lacked regulators.