Brian's problem turned out to be a 'minor' wiring break. It was exactly where Official Richard said it would be.
This is the wire that went from the battery, through the engine bay bulkhead, and onto the starter motor.
Look to the left of the picture and you may see what the problem was.
Here's a close up. That is a) not good, and b) clearly hasn't been good for a while.
This picture shows the only strand that was long enough to be making the connection to the rest of the rest of the wire!
So we (and by that I mean The Mark and J) replaced the wire and then took off the old starter motor.
They compared it to the brand spanking new starter motor from EuroCarParts.
Hmmmmm. The eagle-eyed amongst you may notice that there is an extra piece of shaft below the splines. We debated it, and then The Mark offered it up underneath. It didn't fit. The extra shaft meant it couldn't fit. The stock photo shows no shaft, but then the entire thing looks different to the stock photo.
We took a pragmatic approach - it was 6pm on a Saturday evening so there wasn't a lot of choice - and refitted the old one after cleaning it up.
Brian turned over, coughed, and started!
What should have happened next was that we cheerfully went inside and made a cup of tea and had pizza and celebrated a good job well done.
Oh no. What actually happened was 4 hours of electrical fault finding. At this stage Brian went through having all his lights, but then if we tried the indicators he dumped all the lights and just displayed the generator warning light. After some fiddling, he went back to no lights on the dash at all. Then he returned to the indicator problem.
Every wire in the engine bay was tested for continuity. They all had it. Every fuse was tested. All good.
There was a mysterious white wire from the coil. It goes into the wiring loom and from there into the depths of Brian. A white wire appears again at the front of Brian, and we assume (but cannot tell for certain) then ambles up into the fuse box.
Much wriggling and testing of wires later, much changing of spade connectors and removing wires and replacing them, and for no apparent reason, everything worked.
At 10:30pm we finally got to the cup of tea and pizza and celebration stage.
Fast forward to this morning, and we triumphantly left the house to give it a little test out of joy. The joy swiftly turned to despair when the same problem was back. No dash lights, then the engine starts, the lights are on, then test the indicators and POW! No more lights!
Oh you can imagine the delight. The unmitigated joy that we felt.
Another round of wire wiggling, testing and taking on and off again, and suddenly it's all back! The Mark and J took Brian for a test drive over as many potholes, speed bumps and sharp corners as they could. They had the lights on and off and indicators flashing like a cheap club night in Blackpool.
Brian came back, all good.
So far, he's fine. That leaves is with a potential intermittent earth fault, somewhere in the wiring loom lighting circuit. The roof job is still on for Thursday morning. In Romsey. Near Southampton.
It's a good job we decided at the last minute to take Brian this weekend, or this wire would have given way on the way to Southampton.
Our whole summer rests on the roof job.
Our whole roof job is now resting on a possible intermittent earth fault.
Not that I'm worried.
Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone so don't mock the spelling and I'll be back later to sort the layout!
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