This wire came loose on the way home today, on the highway. I noticed the car “hesitating” and thought…hmmm – carb? but when I allowed the car to coast a little the “generator” light came on and the oil pressure dropped – so I had a pretty shrewd idea of what was going next – we took the highway as close to home as possible but as soon as we came off and the car was at a stoplight it did the expected and died. Turns out it was this wee wire which runs from a housing in front of the carb… I presume that this is a ground, and that when it came off, it shorted the alternator/generator. Cleaned the wire, but couldn’t get it back in the “clamp” so I simply unscrewed the bolt and mashed it in between the washer and the clamp – and after a couple of cranks it went again.
Amazing – I fixed the fault but I have no idea how or why… 🙂
Caught in my headlights 