<VV> HELP: Apparent Electrical Issue

[Tom Hughes]

My daughter was driving my ‘63 last night. After cruising fine for about 30
minutes at highway speeds, the car had the simultaneous symptoms of engine
down on power, headlights dimming, and GEN-FAN light illuminated brightly.
After about a second everything went normal again, but the problem came
back about 10 seconds later only to disappear again almost immediately.
This went on a couple more times until the engine died, the headlights
stayed off, and the GEN-FAN stayed on. She coasted to the shoulder and her
sister came and got her. This morning I went to the car expecting to have
to flat-tow it home, but it started right up and I was able to drive it to
a safe parking spot about a half-mile away. I’ll go get it after work.


Heat-related? Would a failing coil give these symptoms? If it’s running
fine this evening, how do I troubleshoot? What do I check?


Note this car has a relocated battery with the positive cable running to
the starter though the interior (i.e. plenty of places where it passes
through and around metal surfaces). I would think if this cable has an
intermittent short, there’d be more issues than dimming headlights, but I
guess it’s something to check.


Thanks in advance for the assistance.
-- 
Tom in Baltimore
corvairfleet.blogspot.com