Burt-fingers Electrical and Computer Repair Rules

1. Never for any reason disconnect the wires running to the battery on your friend's bass boat.
2. The cleaner and tighter the connection, the harder it is to accept that it won't work due to corrosion. Terminals loose enough that you can twist them work better than tight connections on a boat in mid-summer.
3. Don't experiment with the connections on a 12v alternator. You'll let the smoke out of the diodes, and they don't work without smoke.
4 On an old boat every repair you make after launching will be electrical.
5. If your golf cart quits and it has gas, find the fuse and check it. Yes, there is always a fuse.
6. If your Honda-powered wood chipper won't start, find the fuse and check it. The manual won't tell you, but it's inside a plastic thingie you have to take apart to find.
7. If your Massey Harris tractor quits, it's out of gas.
8. If your Yamaha G1 golf cart quits, grab the wiring harness next to the battery, twist slightly and tug. You may get lucky and drive home in reverse.
9. If your Ez-Go 2-cycle golf cart quits and the spark plug is blue, the engine won't last much longer, but it will start again in an hour or so.
10. If your Ez-Go 2 cylinder golf cart quits, check for corrosion under the plastic cover next to the battery.
11. If your Club Car quits after a drive through a mud hole, clear the goop out of the air vent on the fuel pump mounted on the firewall.
12. Never try to hook up anything electrical while holding a coffee cup. Those 9 volt transformers have a kick when you put the hot end in your mouth.
13. If the brake lights on your car fail, your trailer wiring harness has shorted, probably from having a door slammed on it.
14. Those little diagrams on automotive fuse panel covers read differently upside down.
15. If you own an older Volvo, keep a hammer in the car to encourage the electric fuel pump.
16. If your VW suddenly starts having electrical faults, check for leakage from the windshield onto the fuse panel.
17. Never strip insulation with your teeth, especially in England where they have 220 volt household current.
18. Some things have to be hooked up hot because the wiring diagrams don't make sense.
19. Golf carts don't like puddles.
20. Water running down through your house's electrical panel is a bad thing.
21. The tiniest of drips in a flush toilet can torment a pump to death. Change the float before you do anything else.
22. A little short in a domestic water heater can keep cattle from drinking two miles away.
23. Your GPS will run out of battery or signal just when you need to find the way back.

Maybe that's why my old golf cart gave me fits for so long: it was behaving just about the way you describe. I eventually resolved the issue by patching two wires into and out of the harness to bypass the problem.

I learned about electric fences when I was six years old. I thought everybody knew about electric fences.
I was gonna put a gate in my neighbors fence and I had to cut a strand of electric fence wire. I told my wife, go over and grab that wire and see if the fence is on. I didn't think she would really do it.
Gosh my wife can scream. But she is a good sport.
She still helped me finish putting in the gate.

Pooh Bear

He took a file to the commutator(?) to restore the connective surface and reassembled the motor. That was 30 years ago. It still runs my tenon cutter and my cousin is still going strong, too.

This was my first encounter with a burnt-fingers electrican. I have watched a few others since, but for sheer curiosity and desire to experiment, this guy remains one of the smartest men I have ever met.

Pooh Bear