New Home

We have finished our move to the new house and have just about finished decorating and furnishing it.  The garage is choc-a-bloc with boxes, tools, paint tins, benches, tyres and gardening tools and will need a few days to sort out, but the priority of course was just to get everything out of the old home and into the new one, so tidiness had to be sacrificed.  The tidying will need everything pulling out onto the driveway, so will have to wait for better weather.

The good news is that the Lightweight and Sankey fit in just one half of the garage, even with the shelf units along that side’s wall.  The Sankey has to be sat sideways to fit like this, but it gives plenty of clearance between the the back of the garage, the trailer, Lightweight and the door (enough to allow me to get through to the shelves without opening the door).  The other side has the work bench and big chest of drawers in place already, and will also allow the Range Rover or another car of the same or lesser height to the Lightweight inside, though the 109 is too tall, even without the roof rack.

The Lightweight was easy enough to shift.  For some reason, there was no power to the coil when I first tried starting it, but after removing the left dash panel to check the 24-13.8V dropper (and finding no fault), it started first time. Obviously it was just attention seeking!  It drove faultlessly to its new home.  That was very pleasing, considering it hasn’t been touched since sorting out the ignition and timing in late summer.

Since moving in at the beginning of February and the falling of the snow, I have had a few nuisance jobs to do on the RRC and 109.  It seems typical that after moving home in no small part to have a garage that will permit the use of a permanent workshop, all this work had to be done outdoors in sub-zero conditions…

The 109’s off-side headlight failed on the way home of the school run.  The wiring to the head lamp had cracked and shorted where it enters the headlamp bowl tailed grommet.  The heat generated damaged all three wires over a 2-3 inch length out from the grommet, so I replaced the bulk of the wiring in that harness spur.  I’m not sure what caused it to fail, but exactly the same thing happened just over a year ago on the other side, on the eve of the MoT test, though on that occasion only the dipped beam live was affected.  It’s something I’ll be having to monitor.

At about the same time, the indicators on the RRc started playing up, worst to the left but also to the right.  They would only work intermittently unless the lever was lightly pressed back towards its detent and middle position, suggesting a contact problem in the switch itself.  Serendipity does once in a while smile, and I had a spare in the garage from when I helped remove the aircon system from a 300Tdi Discovery for installation in the Range Rover.  The swap requires the removal of the steering wheel, column shroud and steering wheel electrics slip-ring.  Unfortunately, after refitting with the new switch, the steering wheel airbag seems to be malfunctioning, with the SRS warning light illuminated on the dash.  Apart from the simple disconnection and reconnection of the airbag itself, the only part of the  system disturbed was the slip ring, and a check with it disconnected at both ends shows a closed circuit on both wires of the airbag loom, suggesting an internal short within the slip ring itself.  New rings are about £45-50+VAT, but I think I have a source for a cheap second hand replacement.  Meanwhile, the fuse has been removed and the driver’s bag loom disconnected at both ends of the steering column to prevent accidental activation while driving.

I also had to replace the battery on the RRC.  The vehicle had been suffering starting problems in sub-zero conditions since autumn – every time there was a frost, starting the engine would result in a rapid engagement/disengagement cycle of the starter, almost resembling a machine gun.  I had checked for water in the contacts to the battery, starter and solenoid just in case ice was forming and creating an electrical isolation, but the contacts were all spotless and dry.  The battery was tested and found to have a bad cell.  The new battery has cured the problem.  Evidently, with the cold making the failed battery even weaker and the cold engine being a bit stiffer to turn, the current draw of the engaged motor was high enough to cause the battery voltage to drop, causing the solenoid to disengage.  This in turn would stop the current to the starter motor, allowing the voltage to return, opening the solenoid.  Then the starter would draw current again, dropping the voltage, opening the solenoid in a rapid and continuous cycle.  At least it was a simple fix, if not all that cheap…

At least we haven’t struggled to cope with the snow and ice on the roads, but it’s horrifying to see the ineptitude and stupidity of some drivers.  One Vitara (the model with the huge wheels and flared arches) owner showed he had no idea of his vehicle or how to use it following us on the icy roads of the new estate; trying to show off how much faster his sporty Vitara is than our RRC, he managed to spin out when turning into a T-junction’s minor road, showing his lack of understanding that his fat wheels off-roader is two wheel drive, that his tyres were entirely inappropriate, and that full throttle in low gear in any car on sheet ice is a bad idea!