RAY: I'm talking about last week's puzzler. It was an automotive puzzler and based on a true story. It has to do with my truck.

TOM: I can't remember it.

RAY: I didn't think so. I can barely remember it.

TOM: Your truck. Yeah, go ahead.

RAY: My older son Louie comes to me the other day.

TOM: I got it now.

RAY: He drives my truck all the time. Well, he drives it when his car runs low on gas. He says dad, there is something wrong with your truck. I say oh, out of gas?

TOM: Now it's my truck.

RAY: Right, no, it didn't need gas. He says when I start the thing up in the morning, the radio stops working, and the tape player is dead. The whole thing is kaput. I drive her for a little but, and it comes on by itself. And it goes off and on and off and on so he doesn't know; he gives up. I decide I'm going to fix it. I take it to the shop one day. I notice that as I'm driving to work, the tape player does seem to work intermittently, but I notice something interesting. When I step on the gas, it stops working; when I take my foot off the gas and go to step on the brake, it comes back.

TOM: That was it man. That was the big clue for me.

RAY: I take my foot off the brake, I step on the gas and accelerate, pptttt, it goes out. Ha, ha, ha I say. It's got to be a loose wire under the dash.

TOM: Did you say that out loud? Was anyone looking at you?

RAY: Yes, the guy next to me at the traffic lights and says uh oh.

TOM: Uh oh.

RAY: He sped away when the light turned green. Somehow the throttle cable is moving this wire, and it will be a piece of cake to fix. After two hours under the dashboard, I've got a splitting headache.

TOM: And your back is killing you.

RAY: And no solution. In fact, I determined there is no loose wire. There is current getting into the radio. In fact, the whole time I'm in the shop, I've got the key on and I'm moving everything around and the thing works perfectly. I cannot make it not work. I gave up on it that day. As I was driving home, just to taunt me it started to do it again. I noticed that if I pushed the cigarette lighter in, the radio worked. I pulled the cigarette lighter out, the radio stopped.

TOM: So many clues here.

RAY: I push the cigarette lighter in and held it in. The radio continued to work. The cigarette lighter caught fire.

TOM: And your thumb caught fire.

RAY: I continued driving home when I realize I can't see a thing, and I can't see because I have no headlights. Both of my headlights aren't working. It was at that moment...

TOM: Coincidence one might ask.

RAY: Hardly.

TOM: Hardly.

RAY: It was at that moment that I knew what was wrong.

TOM: Right.

RAY: What was it?

TOM: The light bulb went on so to speak.

RAY: The light bulb went off, and another one went on.

TOM: Yeah.

RAY: What was happening is that the charging system had gone nutso. In doing so it had burned out my headlights. It was overcharging.

TOM: Putting out 20 volts.

RAY: Oh, when I put the meter on, it pinned the thing. It was putting out too much voltage, and the radio manufacturers in their wisdom had designed it so that there is a -- what do you call it -- a surge protection device. So if there is too much juice getting to the radio...

TOM: It cuts it off.

RAY: It cuts it off.

TOM: Otherwise you fry all those delicate little electrons that are running around there making music.

RAY: Yes, and so when I took my foot off the gas pedal and stepped on the brake, the engine slowed, the charging system returned to a normal output, or closer to normal, the radio would kick in. When I took my foot off the brake and stepped on the gas and accelerated it, the alternator was making too much current, the radio would go out. When I pushed the cigarette lighter in, I drew some of that electricity...

TOM: Suck up all the current -- a lot of current.

RAY: Some of those electrons, OK, until I melted...

TOM: The heat electrons and not the music electrons.

RAY: That's right. They're different. They're heavy electrons.

TOM: Heavy, like heavy -- like a heavy water.

RAY: So what I needed was a new voltage regulator, and that solved the problem. Do we have a winner this week? Of course we do.

TOM: You bet.

RAY: We always have a winner.

TOM: The winner is Leon woo -- Leon Gewolb.

RAY: Sounds good.

TOM: G-e-w-o-l-b, how would you pronounce that?

RAY: Gewolb.

TOM: Gewolb, from Port Washington, New York.