Tuesday, July 29, 2008

A nearby lightning strike, and its effect...

It’s my intent to put at least one article here a month, of substantial content.

This month, July 2008, to really enjoy my car my only recourse is the DeLorean Calendar, of which 2109 is featured for this month, because starting on July 5th, after a great drive, I pulled the car in the garage to begin the infamous “Valley of Death” (VOD) work. I’ll do a full write up on why, how, how much time, etc. next month. (PS: I enjoy working on my car, so it wasn’t a total lost month.)

This month I’d like to leave you with this little tidbit. Although it was not DeLorean related, it could definitely apply.

My mother in law was recently driving in to visit us, as she was 100 miles away she got caught in a thunderstorm, with lightning strikes flashing and cracking near her Toyota Rav4. As she waited at a stoplight – there was an instant flash along with a loud CRACK and BOOM!!!! …a lighting strike hit and exploded a transformer on the top of a pole, right by her car. Thankfully she was fine, just startled, but immediately after the energy dissipated, her car would not start. After the storm subsided, a battery jump start got the car going again, but the car’s entire electrical system was acting strangely.

Eventually the car had to be towed in the remaining distance, as it appeared to not hold a charge, and the alarm was messed up, and the power windows, and a few other electrical items. The culprit? See picture, the energy of the strike made it into the electrical system, and melted a link path (cener of picture) in the fuse box!


So, the morale of this story is, if you are caught in a lighting storm in your DeLorean, you may not be sent "Back to the Future", but you may be sent to mechanic/parts store.

>>> If you have a few minutes, be sure to check out the "Best of" postings. Thanks.<<<