[Tony Radford]

Bill, she took a full charge over night. I fired her up briefly when I first re-installed the battery last night and the ammeter was reading zero. What I find strange (and it could be attributed to technical ignorance) is that when I first detected she was dead, I turned off the key and turned it on again. For a brief instant, she fired up and ran for a couple of seconds. That worked twice and then nothing. Can a defective coil drain a battery? If the regulator failed, would a battery completely drain in a matter of minutes? I'll fire her up a little later when the neighbors are awake (most of them anyway) and see if the ammeter reads anything with the charger disconnected. If it's still zero, I guess I'll pull the alternator and send it back to the manufacturer.