[meanroy]

What a morning!

My buddy Rob calls me up at 6:30 and says: Hey Roy my brake lights are out, I got NO money at all, what am I gonna do? I ask, "Did you check the fuse?"

"Yeah fuse looks ok."

I said "come on over man, we can probably fix them." He's got a '83 280Z, non-turbo.

So he showed up at 7:45 and we started checking.
First Rob has to take all the junk and loose tools out of the back so we can see whats up. I gave him an old toolbox and made him sort his tools out. (and got a bunch of mine back)
Then while checking for loose wires I note that his fusable link is holding together by one strand of wire.
I touch it and it falls apart!
It's a slightly larger than normal push-on connector so I have to dissassemble the old one and solder the new wire to it.

OK, back to the job.

Then I messed up and checked the wrong fuse the first go-around, so after pulling the wires off the switch, and screwing around for an hour, I decide to re-check the fuse.
This time I'm carefull and read the top of the box.
Oops, checked the wrong fuse the first time! Sure enough fuse is blown.

New fuse.

Blows immediately, push the brake and it's gone.

So I get out my VOM, and start tracing it back.

Eventually trace it to the drivers side brake light. Dead short.

I pull the insert, remove the bulb and look inside. The plastic around the contact appears to be melted????

Rob pulls out the tail light assembly.
After some considerable messing around, I find that, sure enough, there is a plastic sleeve around the contact which has melted and the contact shorted to the coil spring which maintains pressure on the bulb base.

I managed to push the contact on through and get the piece of fiberboard that it fits in out of the housing.

Mixed up some twin-tube epoxy and epoxied the contact in and re-assembled the damn thing.
Then I notice the back shell of the tail light assembly is all cracked to heck!

More epoxy, tape everything in place and let it harden.

Re-assemble the whole mess, Rob checks it. "Hey Roy, it all works!"

Cool. 7 hours start to finish with an hour out for lunch.

It's all cool though, he has to help me clean my garage now!

I did get a little done on the Mustang while he did stuff though.

Heh Heh Heh, though I've been working on it the garage is STILL a hell-hole, I can use the help..

[78novaman]

I hope he learned his lesson and won't leave all his stuff just laying in the trunk anymore.

[schnitz]

Is he still using your toolbox? LOL

[meanroy]

So get this.

After checking everything we decide to go down and get some berr.
We go down to the store and Rob says "I think they quit again."
I'm disbelieving, and tell him BullS***!, we just fixed them. He says "I think they quit."
We get back from the beer run and park in the shade, I say ok hit the brakes.
No lights.
Resigned I say ok let me check the fuse. I pop the top off the box and look. No fuse.
"Rob there's no effing fuse in there!"
"Oh, I forgot", he says, "I took it out while I connected the battery cable, it's on the floor." I plugged in the fuse, check the lites, no problem. I asked him, "how could you do that?" "Roy, I just forgot" I just looked at him. "Lets go have a beer."

He's got his own toolbox now, but he's leaving it in my garage. LOL!

PS.
Rob and I have been friends for about 20 years. He's a 5th degree Tae Kwan Do instructor. He may not be the brightest bulb on the block but he's a great guy and has helped me out a lot of times. I don't really mind these little adventures THAT much. But Jeeze! "I forgot!" That was just too funny!

[schnitz]

I've heard ginsing is supposed to help the memory. I've got a bottle in the house someplace, but I can't remember where....

[crazy larry]

well that was real nice of you to change Bullheimers name to ''Rob''. and you even changed up the cars to throw us off.