Of Slipping and Reversing

Bear with me a moment but I'm having a flashback moment.That's what I call it anyway.Was just remembering my Citroen CX,which I mentioned briefly at the start of this blog.If the DS was my ultimate vehicle,then the CX is second favourite.It's got to be said not everyone was thrilled with the dashboard,'quirky' was probably the kindest thing you could say.Needless to say,I loved it.Getting behind the wheel was like getting into an aircraft and as for that self-centering steering,well,all you needed was one finger to guide the beast.

But the first few days of ownership weren't all that rosy.On the test drive before buying it,I picked up on that the clutch was slipping,only slightly,but slipping even so.After the garage had swapped the clutch I drove it home,glorious! So it was more than a little disappointing to find on going on a longer drive that the engine stuttered then finally packed it in altogether.After a few minutes it restarted and got me home again. Back in the garage dad and I built (maybe you remember),the condenser in the distributor got checked since that may have been overheating and failing.Whatever I checked didn't show up anything that convinced me I'd found the problem.Finally,in desperation,the multi-meter came out and was connected across the low-voltage terminals on the coil.Turned out what should have been the earth was live and what should have been live was,you guessed it,the earth.The poor coil was acting like a little electric fire,must've been heck inside that steel can.Once the leads were reversed,to the way they should have been,the car ran like the proverbial dream.