The Old Headlight

Time for a puzzler. Here we go.

Many years ago, I went on a vacation to Cape Cod. Took a few weeks off to just be up in Cape Cod.

And during that vacation I was able to go to a yard sale in the area. It was a big old house where they had a barn with a bunch of old junk in there, wagons and baby carriages and all this stuff that they were going to throw out.

There was a lot of automotive stuff in the yard sale too. And in sifting through the tables of stuff, I found one very interesting item. It was a headlight, half of which had been painted with black paint. This thing was painted black on half of the front part, half the lens. So, I looked around to see if I could find the other one, since they are supposed to come in pairs. But I couldn't find it. This thing was a very old headlight, and it was a 6 volt headlight.

So, that means at the time, it was at least 45 years old, though now it would be considered ancient!

So, the puzzler question is, why was this very old 6 volt headlight painted black?

Note, the answer has nothing to do with running out of paint!

And a hint, you're not be likely to find one of these in a similar yard sale in a place like Ohio...

Good luck.

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

Smashed to Smithereens

This one is an automotive puzzler. Here we go.

Years ago, a customer came into the shop.

The customer complained about the following problem. He said, "When I try to climb a long, rather steep hill, about a third of the way up the hill, or maybe more, the car starts to behave peculiarly, as if someone has turned the key off, and then it turns it right back on. It comes back on and turns off, comes back on... So the car lurches severely. On level ground, I have no problem, and I can drive the car perfectly okay, at any speed I want."

And I was writing this down when one of my guys is standing behind me, listening, and the customer says, "Oh, one other thing. If I try to climb a much steeper hill, but shorter, doesn't happen. It doesn't happen at all."

And the mechanic behind me says, "I got it. I got it exactly. You don't have a fuel injected car, do you?"

And the customer said, "No, I don't."

How did he know that? And what was wrong with his car?