knavekid
Member
Joined: 04 Dec 2007
Posts: 62
Location: Orlando, FL |
'66 Fairlane story from many years ago . . .
In the late 70's, I was driving home from college with two other students in the car. This is a 550 mile trip from the upper peninsula of Michigan to my home in southwest Michigan. At around 11 PM, the car started filling with smoke from under the dash. I immediately pulled over and turned everything off. The smoking stopped. I soon discovered that it only smoked when the headlights were turned on.
Being late at night on a two lane highway in rural Michigan, there wasn't help to be had for miles (as far as we knew), so we got back in the car and continued on our way with only the parking lights on. There was enough moonlight to see the road and I pulled over or turned the headlights on briefly for oncoming cars. Once we got to Grand Rapids, the roads were lit up enough to see and I dropped the others off and made it the additional 50 miles home.
The next day, I isolated the problem to the headlight dimmer switch on the floor. The moisture from the winter snow and slush caused the terminals to corrode until they were too thin to handle the headlight current. The harness connector was melted beyond repair. I spliced in a section of harness procured from a local junk yard and bought a new switch. Problem solved! _________________ -- David
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