[Farace]

Weird thing happened today. I damaged the passenger side front bumper on my '71 Spider the other day, repaired it and reinstalled it this afternoon. (I had no idea that the bumpers on this car aren't really bumpers, but just big light fixtures!) Naturally, I made sure the parking and signal lights worked; I had to replace a bulb, and everything was fine.

Just for good measure, I checked the driver's side, too, even though I hadn't damaged that. Well, when I put on the turn signal for that side, the parking light and side marker light flashed. The signal light, which should have flashed, did nothing. Hmmm. Put on the parking lights, and the correct lights lit. Put on the turn signal and the parking lights, the parking lights flash, nothing from the signal light. Grrr.

I checked and made sure the right wires were going to the right places. They were fine. I couldn't reach the connector, so I removed the bumper. I disconnected the connector. Everything looked fine. The right wires matched up on both sides of the connector.

I put it all back together. Checked again. This time everything worked like it's supposed to. Signal light flashes on the turn signal, no flashing parking or side marker lights.

If I had a nickel for every time I've fixed something just by taking it apart and putting it back together without ever finding the cause of the problem, I could afford to have someone else figure these things out. This is probably the weirdest one yet, though, and I can't figure out what might have been the problem. It can only be the monacchicchi. (Learned about them in Italian class in high school; apparently they're the spirits of babies that died before baptism and therefore sent to purgatory; they're responsible for all sorts of mischief in Italian folklore. This seems to include my Alfa's lights.)