Greetings - recently received a 1939 light duty from my Dad. The truck was bought brand new by my great grandfather in '39. Dad had it since '68. It has been fun to learn and tinker with the truck. It is essentially in it's original configuration (6 Volts, 216 enginer) with a rebuild and a few add-ons (blinkers, running lights, a second break light).
I have been playing with the brake lights and blinkers a bit, Dad never had them 100% functional, and i plan to drive it a bit more than he did. I did not rewire anything, but checked all the bulbs, traced wires, etc. He did add on an LED brake light bar in the rear window years ago.
That all said, I have had a few instances when the engine would stall when the brake pedal was applied. It will do this standing still. I have not driven it that much. It stalled last night twice, once just bringing the truck into the garage from the driveway. I restarted her, and pressed the pedal again, and she stalled again.
My initial thoughts are there is a short somewhere, or that the brake lights are draining the electrical system enough to stall the vehicle. The battery seems to be holding a charge (6.15V to 6.2V, over 7V when running so the generator seems to be ok).
Any thoughts or suggestions or similar experiences? Thanks! I am enjoying this forum as I learn about the truck.
Welcome to the site, you've found the best place for lovers of stock Chevrolets.
I've seen light wires etc short or ground to the point of burning the wire off before, but never seen it kill the engine in the process. You've got something really unusual going on. I'd start by tracing the wiring supplying the ignition circuit all the way from the starter post to the coil, and look for things peripherally connected that shouldn't be there, or things the circuit is running or bypassed through that it shouldn't be.
Good luck 🙂
PS How does the ammeter react when you apply the brake and this happens?
If you still have the original Electrolok I vote for a bare wire shorting out inside the electrlok cable shield.
The reason it stalls is that just before you apply the brake you let off the gas. So the engine moves in the mounts. That movement then moves the cable shield so the bare wire shorts to ground. .
