gregz wrote:
micky wrote:
On Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:05:58 +0000 (UTC), wrote:

David Farber wrote:
Somehow her foot dislodged the connector going to something around
the clutch pedal shaft. It has six terminals and I'm guessing it's
some sort of sensor that detects the position of the clutch so you
can start the car?

Yeah. There will be at least one contact that doesn't close until
the clutch pedal is fairly far depressed; it is there to prevent
the starter from running unless the driver has stepped on the
clutch. (It also prevents a smart driver from doing something
clever, like using the starter to "walk" the car out of an
intersection, off the railroad tracks, etc.)

There was a caller on Cartalk where animals shorted the starter cable
and the car moved "down the driveway" which was up a hill, across t
he street, and almost went over a cliff.

If the car has cruise control, there will be another
contact that changes state when the clutch pedal is barely
depressed; that one is there to cut out the cruise control if the
driver uses the clutch.

I wasn't writing this stuff down

This is a good way to get lost in the middle of an adventure.

Hey, did Indiana Jones take notes?

Then I looked at the schematic
http://webpages.charter.net/mrfixite...ck_Fuse_29.mht

What the heck is .mht and how come IE reads it but maybe not Firefox?

This page has been saved by Internet Exploiter... as an email...
with Quoted-Printable damage. Maybe the least useful format that
it was possible to use, which explains why it's IE's default.

After pulling the lighter fuse, the current drop to about .8A.

Does the car have more than one cigarette lighter socket? An
extended- cab pickup might have an extra one in the back seat.
Sometimes people add one in the bed for accessories... sometimes
they even get it on the same fuse as the one in the cab!

By the way, the [cigarette lighter] receptacle itself was not
covered/ protected so it made sense that it was getting to look a
bit rusty.

I have seen new cars that had a "no smoking" package from the
dealer; the "ashtray" had a flocked lining to serve as a small
storage bin, and there was a plastic plug with handle in place of
the cigarette lighter element. If the lighter socket on this car
is in a place where it is liable to get drinks and debris in it,
finding one of those plastic plugs (dealer? junkyard?), or a rubber
stopper with a bolt in it for a handle, might be a good idea.

In fact with all the fuses put back in, the current leveled off at
.22A. I didn't know if this was an acceptable reading or not.

That's kind of high. In 24 hours that is 5.28 Ah gone from the
battery. That will run the average car battery down to nothing in
about ten days.

I think I remember Pat Voss saying that if a #54 light bulb would
light with the current going out of the battery, it was too much.
#54 is the smallest spherical lne, back when lightbulbs were
lightbulbs and didn't speak some European or Asian langueage.
Someday I have to find out how many hundredsths of an amp is a $54.

Some cars have solenoids on the front seat belt reels that allow the
reels to spin more freely when you are getting in and out of the
car. Usually, as soon as you hit the unlock button on the remote or
open the driver's door, the solenoids will turn on. They stay on
until either 1) the engine starts or 2) a timeout in the range of 5
to 15 minutes expires; if you are standing there with the engine
not running, you can sometimes hear a little "tick" from the seat
belt reel when the solenoid turns off. This might account for some
of the current draw you are seeing.

A few newer cars start getting lots of things ready for you when you
open the driver's door. Toyota hybrids will turn on the electric
vacuum pump (which provides brake power assist when the engine isn't
running) and possibly a few other things before you have turned the
key. These eventually time out as well, but the current draw from
the 12 V battery might be surprising for the first minute or two.

Good to know. I will proably be able to use this in about 7 to 9
years.

Matt Roberds

Looked for #54 nope. I used to have lamp tables. Google can be
useless on old stuff.

I hate when I open the door on my avalanche, and I hear the
navigation disk being read. Key off.

I once had a ford leaking amperage. Found leaky brake switch. Light
was on dim in the dark, sometimes.

Greg

Somewhere in my shop I used to have a book will those bulbs listed. I'm
fairly certain it had current ratings. I'll do some hunting and let you
know.

--
David Farber
Los Osos, CA