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...and boy do I feel like a dumn ass...
As some of you may remember, on Friday morning my amp light was flashing which was a mystery to me..
Well...later on Friday afternoon, a friend of mine came by, so I set him up with a beer and coaxed him to try to help diagnose the problem (not hard to do...he's a chevy man, and welcomed the opportunity to remind me how easy it would be to drop a V-8 in there...)
I started it up, amp light still flashing....turned on the radio, but it didn't come on, so I figured maybe it was a fuse issue, but all the fuses looked OK. I figured the inline fuse on the radio blew. I did notice a very faint smell of electrical smoke, but nothing out of the ordinary. I noticed that when I revved the engine, the amp light flashed faster...so I revved it up more to see what would happen. Well...lo and behold, the amp light went out. I left the engine running and pulled one of the battery leads (DON'T try that if your car has an alternator) and it kept running...shut it all off, turned it back on...all seemed well. THe car had fixed itself.
On my way out of town, I noticed the fuel guage wasn't working. As I drove along, I came to one possible conclusion of what would cause only the radio and fuel guage to quit.... I stopped, and sure enough...
Lets just say that I'll triple check next time I install a battery at 7 in the morning after only having had a half cup of coffee. I had put the damn thing in backwards...
The amp light would flash until the generator re-polarized itself. Then it worked fine. I converted my Jaguar to neg ground the same way. I should have known. The faint electrical smoke smell was apparently the cheap radio in the glovebox. It's a goner.
Live and learn...thanks for all your suggestions. Just goes to show, always check the simple things first.
-Matt B
64 544 (with temporary positive ground)
and some others.
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