The Snapper
Puzzler time. This one is automotive in nature. Here we go.
Years ago we had a car come into the garage. The car was making this snapping sound. It is a pretty common sound that comes from either a spark plug wire or a bad coil discharging. We would get that kind of stuff in the shop back in the day.
So for those of you that don't know, it went like this. You'd turn the car on, the engine would run and every minute or two, there would be this little snapping sound, like a tiny little lightning bolt. You could hear it from the driver's seat. So sitting in the car with the radio off, you'd hear this noise.
So this was happening with this car. Although it was not happening with an engine miss, which sometimes happens. In this case, there was no engine miss, we were convinced that it was something to do with some sort of misfire, that somehow or another, a spark was jumping to ground.
And that is what was happening, but we could not find the source.
An examination of the secondary ignition system turned up nothing. We investigated all the wires and all that stuff. Nothing.
Then, I had a brillant idea. It started to get cold and dark and rainy outside just then. So, I said to my mechanic, "Okay, stick the car outside. In a few minutes, it'll be dark and it'll be wet, and we'll see the problem more clearly, because it's going to exacerbate the problem. If you have a bad spark plug wire or a bad cap or a bad coil, you will see it, you will hear it, and it'll happen more frequently in the dark, wet weather."
So we put the car outside.
An hour later, my guy goes out, and he starts the thing up. And he says, "Guess what? The noise is gone."
"How could this be?" I asked.
He says, "I think I know the answer."
I say, "You do? Give me a hint."
And he says, "Your brother's hair."
So, what is the answer?
Good luck.
