SJ gremlins
22 MayStephen and my passport arrived back from the Tajikistan Consulate in Austria today. I held my breath as I opened the package – would there be a better luck next time note, or two correct Tajik visas. Thankfully, it was the latter! I’m still waiting on a letter of invitation for the Uzbekistan visa, so the next one to apply for is Kazakhstan.
In terms of the car, today was a massive saga. I spent from 7 until 9 in the morning tidying some things up before the MOT. I had to tape over some rust in the bodywork, make the right hand side reverse light work, replace two missing bolts in the radiator, two missing bolts in the handbrake mount etc.
I drove the car up to Town Garage for the MOT and they got stuck straight into it. The only problem was, once on the hoist, it refused to start... and because it wouldn’t start, they couldn’t do the test. It sounded the same as yesterday, like low fuel pressure, however it didn’t have a spark either.
Eventually we pushed it off the hoist and they left me in the car park to try and resolve the problem. A whole heap of other electrical bits and pieces had gone wrong as well. On top of this, it had now started to rain heavily - I spent 3 hrs struggling, in which I tried a different coil and plugged and unplugged various bits and pieces. When it cooled down it would start again, but not for long. Eventually I left it to cool, had a baguette, and then started it and nervously drove back to base. Nervously because if it stopped I didn’t fancy trying to explain to the Police why I had no MOT, insurance, or tax.
It stopped in the factory driveway (my best bit of luck all day!) and I pushed it inside. Another 1hr with a multimeter and I established the ignition switch was the issue. There was a bad connection inside the switch, on the ignition position. The hotter the switch was, the worse the problem was. At its worst, 80% of times you’d turn the key to ignition, it wouldn’t connect properly, and everything on the ignition circuit would malfunction – wipers, reverse lights, blower fan, indicators (but not hazards), washers as well as the engine control module, and a little fuel solenoid on the carburettor. The latter two explained why it would just stop dead. I solved the problem by connecting the accessory and ignition circuits together, so when the ignition has its bad connection, the accessory circuit will prop it up. All good as long as the accessory side doesn’t get overloaded. If it does though, at least I know where to look. Better to find this problem now though than in the Kazak desert. Now it starts first turn of the key... and it’s back for round 2 at the MOT next week!
