Garageman continues to be faced with weird motoring-related problems at his garage. With Syd, Hennie and newboy Japie on the team, the solutions don’t always come from the book!
Most motor mechanics know just enough about electricity to get by. In some big city workshops there is usually at least one auto electrician; in others, such work is farmed out. We repair easy-todiagnose faults, and send the rest to an auto electrician in the nearest big town.
This usually means that electrical mysteries leave us completely in the dark. However, occasionally an electrical problem occurs that one of us has seen before, and this gives the wise one a chance to lord it over the rest of us.
Japie, our apprentice, was the victim of such a mystery while working on an old Ford bakkie. He had helped Hennie replace the clutch, and once the gearbox was mated with the engine, he was left on his own to complete the job. When the bakkie was back on its wheels, Japie started the engine to park the vehicle outside until Hennie could find a few moments to take it on the road.
The engine struggled to start and when it finally fired, smoke poured out from underneath the bonnet. Japie was quick to switch off again, and opened the bonnet with a very puzzled look on his face.
By now the incident had started to attract attention, and bystanders could see that the smoke originated from a hot and oily accelerator cable. Both Syd and Hennie exchanged knowing looks, because they had seen this kind of thing before, but Japie was completely flummoxed.
Syd, pretending to be stern, said to Japie: “Don’t tell me you’ve overcharged the battery,” to which Japie replied: “ Oom Sydney, are you serious, or are you having me on? What has this got to do with the battery? In any case, I only went near the battery to re-connect the earth cable.”
After more banter, Hennie decided to enlighten Japie. “You’ll find the earth connection between the engine and chassis is very dirty or you’ve forgotten to re-connect it. The spark plug’s return path to the battery is through this connection, and if the resistance is too high, the accelerator cable has sometimes been known to serve as an earth. The resultant current through the cable heats it up in next to no time.”
Japie was obviously relieved that the incident did not have more serious implications, but amazed at how important a simple earth connection could be.
