the blue vs the yellow

I spent a few minutes attempting to start the car today with no success. You may notice in the previous post that the picture of the new ignition relay shows the yellow wire connected to the positive terminal of the coil. This turns out to be wrong, and it's actually the blue wire that was supposed to be connected, as yellow is normally closed (NC) on that relay and blue is normally open (NO). Fortunately I had the battery disconnected so the coil didn't bathe itself in a warm glow of fire during the overnight chill. I swapped yellow for blue, and the engine started right up. It sounds considerably better with the exhaust leaks fixed (or at least greatly reduced), and the voltmeter now shows a perfectly normal 13.5V with the headlights on. I expect the ignition switch is really happy not to have all that load through it as well. 

While the car warmed up I took the time to fix the burnt-out starboard-side license plate lamp as well. I didn't drive it, but the clutch feels a whole lot better too - it used to be somewhat graunchy which I imagine was the threaded end of the cable scraping over the edge of the throwout lever. 

I'm pondering how to pack the ever-growing list of tools and supplies I'm generating. The Spider has a decently-sized boot for a 2-seater roadster. It also has a weird little rear bench seat, the provenance of which is completely unknown. No one could actually sit there except sideways, as there's no legroom. With snacks, liquids for car and man, parts, and tools, every little nook will be filled. Possibly some bags may be strapped onto the luggage rack, as is right and proper until it rains. 

There is an additional problem.  According to the specifications, the maximum cargo weight of a wooded and watered 1978 Fiat Spider is around 500 lbs. I like ice cream, and my co-pilot is of the same ancient stock, so just the weight of meatbags in the car is north of 400 lbs. I have therefore abandoned my idea to fit the floor jack into the trunk. There isn't any carpet in the car though, so there's that.