One of the most frustrating and elusive aspects of this automotive game we play with cars has to be electrical gremlins. This is certainly aggravated by working with ‘60s muscle cars. It difficult for me to accept that the cars I’ve been playing with for all these years are now 50 years old. I have one each of a ’65 and a ’66 Chevelle (that run sometimes), and a ’65 El Camino. Over the years these cars have tested my patience with electrical systems.

Back in 2010, I was invited to participate in the Optima Ultimate Street Car Challenge with my ’65 Chevelle Pro Touring car. We spent time getting the car ready for the event but one place we didn’t consider was the charging system. Several months before the Optima event, we competed in a hill climb sponsored by Spectre called the 341 Challenge up an interesting two-lane Highway 341 climbing into Virginia City, Nevada. Unfortunately, I only made a few laps before the Chevelle’s charging system died. We couldn’t find a replacement alternator and ended up towing home with a broken car. There’s a long, complicated and self-incriminating story underneath all this that we won’t waste space here trying to explain except to say that oddball, race car alternators don’t belong on a street car.

We brought the car home and replaced the alternator with a high performance unit from Powermaster. Everything was wonderful until we arrived at the Optima event. After a short driver’s meeting, we were supposed to drive around Las Vegas on essentially a scavenger’s hunt to prove our cars are indeed street cars. Pulling out of the driveway, my charging system died. We were south of Las Vegas and roughly an hour’s drive to the track in Pahrump, where the race would be held the next day. I elected to immediately strike off for Pahrump, hoping that my Optima battery would keep the Chevelle running. That was no small feat as the sun was down so draining the battery was the headlights, electric fuel pump, and the MSD ignition system. I watchd that voltmeter like it represented life itself because I knew that the MSD would shut off somewhere just under 10 volts. Amazingly, the Optima battery got us there – but just barely. We even drove for a time with the headlights off, driving by moonlight across the desert.

We never really figured out why the car kept killing alternators. The final fix was to replace the entire wiring harness with a new Painless system. That solved not only a mystery key-off electrical drain but also has produced 5 years of zero electrical problems. So there’s probably the lesson in just replacing the entire harness rather than always chasing multiple elusive electrical ghosts.

One other fun experience was with my old ’64 Olds F-85. My buddy Tim Moore had built the car and I bought it from him, complete with a 45 Olds motor and TH400 trans. We took the car on a little trip from Los Angeles to San Diego one weekend and just north of Escondido, California on the I-15 the engine suddenly died. Actually, the entire electrical system just went dead. My dad was a pilot with the U.S. Marine Corps and he used to call incidences like that a “low altitude emergency”. Mine was far less stressful than having that same issue in an aircraft!

I knew where the problem existed. Those ‘60s GM fuse boxes used bare tin fuse holders and connectors and had a reputation for turning to rust – effectively eliminating the electrical connection. On most GM cars of that era, a single power lead found its way into the interior from the horn relay that fed all the power to the car. When that connection became corroded, road vibration caused it to fail. And when that happens, the whole car just shuts down.

I discovered that if I gave the fuse box a deft kick with my left foot this would restore the connection. I became very adept at whacking the fuse box even while driving. So that night, we were just pulling off the Interstate 8 freeway exit with a small Toyota or Honda trailing behind when we suffered a low altitude emergency. So I performed my usual left foot kick solution.

Here’s where we must halt the story for our first Fast Talk disclaimer – don’t try this at home with a car that has a locking steering column – okay? The Olds postions the key on the dash so the steering doesn’t lock when you turn it off. Why is that important? Read on.

In your younger days (or maybe you still do this –shame on you), did you ever drive your dad’s car and accelerate hard up on the freeway and then turn the ignition key off for about five seconds? When my friend Bob Cryder first did this with his dad’s ’65 Chevy straight six pickup truck, it would always reward him with a giant ball of flame shooting out of the tailpipes. By shutting off the ignition and decelerating in gear, raw fuel collects in the exhaust system and then explodes in a ball of flame when the ignition is turned back on.

So now here we are at 12:30 at night with our little Toyota about a half car length behind our 455ci, Holley carb’d big-block Olds. I kick the fuse box to get the fire lit and the first strike accomplishes nothing. So I kicked it again – harder. This time, it worked – too well. All I saw in the rearview mirror was what looked like a small bomb exploding with a giant orange plume of fire exiting the tailpipes. The Toyota instantly backed off about 20 car lengths and I’m sure he thought I did that on purpose. I didn’t – but that didn’t make it any less funny. That’s still one of my favorite road stories. There is a Toyota somewhere in San Diego with a singed front clip and a story to tell from the receiving end of that fireball. Today I’d probably be arrested as a terrorist.

I eventually put a Painless harness in that car too. It’s a small price to pay for driving old cars.