Thursday, March 20, 2008

Night of the RAC man


rac card
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Off to the KMBC tonight for the "Bring & Buy" and RNLI videos evening. Plenty of chat and laughs were enjoyed plus there was a lot of admiration for those who crew the orange boats. We left a bit early planning to head over to the railway club as well to pick up some advertising posters for the weekend.

I turned the key on the van and the dashboard light up but the engine didn't turn over. I tried again, And again. Nothing. Since the run out had been fine, this was an unexpected and unwelcome mystery. So I tried again, just to be on the safe side you understand. It may be a sign of madness to keep doing the same thing and expect different results, but it's also the hallmark of the classic car owner who is wishing he was in a modern car that started.

Poking around in the back didn't help because my torch, a wind up model, was hopeless. You can't do much when one hand is holding the torch and the other is winding the handle ! Fortunately we were in a well lit and dry car park.

The RAC came out after only 20 minutes. The mechanic poked around for a bit, checked the battery (OK) and the wires in the engine bay (OK). The he had a look at the starter motor. Now I had fancied this as the problem area but with no torch or anything suitable for crawling around under vehicles to wear, I couldn't look myself.

The problem was a wire had come off the back of the solenoid. Putting it back on cured the fault. On reflection this probably happened when I was trying to adjust the heater cables a few weeks ago. It's a bit messy and tight in there and easy to dislodge a wire when you are doing something else. Especially when that something else is a pain in the arse job. Mind you we've started quite a few times since then so I must have been lucky before.

After filling in the paperwork we headed off. The van seemed a bit underpowered but I suspected all the fiddling had loosened a plug wire so soldiered on.

This worked OK until we got past Ufton and on a dark, narrow road, broke down. There was no power at all. Still had electrics though, even the engine turned over but wouldn't fire. I had visions that filing up at Sainsburys earlier hadn't been a good idea.

Just as I was about to get on the phone, a familiar orange van turned up behind. "Are you broken down" he asked rhetorically.

More poking around and the conclusion was - loose wires in the ignition circuit. One was off the coil entirely and putting it back sorted the problem. Of course, sans working torch I wasn't likely to spot this.

The run back (followed by the RAC man) was uneventful. Power was back to normal with a steady 50mph all the way.

Jobs to do:
Buy a torch.
Buy a second torch in case the first breaks down.
Buy spare batteries for torches.
Put these in the van.
Crimp up all the connections in the ignition circuit to stop them falling off.
Never, ever think of cancelling the breakdown membership. It's worth it's weight in gold.

Now I was lucky, the orange rescue vehicle I was so pleased to see came by land. I sat in the dry, not bobbing around on the sea. It makes you realise how important the guys in orange boats are.

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