wow ... never thought of that before. i remember years ago after i bought my 65 sprite, i was trying to get the engine to turn over and noticed that the choke cable was getting extremely hot. i shut the car down and pretty much never tried to start it again. very soon after that, i put the car away in storage never really understanding what happened. figured it was some kind of short. in this case, considering there was some work done under the car, the ground strap could have been removed or not even there. after reading this thread, i may now understand what was going on. thanks