There is an (allegedly) Chinese curse, which says "May you live in interesting times." Well people, this weekend, we are truly living in those times.
This should have been a slightly dull blog post, in which we mentioned Brian having his brakes fixed, totally, and it being just a simple switch. (Both had failed, and so one has been done and the other will be done when the rear anti-rollbar goes in.)
He went to the garage. Paul did it and the steering drag link that needed doing. Brian went up. Paul went under and worked his magic. Brian came down. Job done.
Maybe I would have thrown this into the same post, or waited and given it a post of its own, but this week we also changed the wiper arms. I know. Rock and roll, right?
Having written this blog post, I would have written another one tomorrow night about going to Vanjamboree in Lincoln, and how fab or not fab it was, and that would have been that. Maybe I would have mentioned that we were a little bit excited because this week is New Roof Week. Brian has to be in Romsey, near Southampton, on Wednesday night to start his roof on Thursday morning.
Instead......... What is wrong with this picture?
Yes dear reader, what is wrong is that those are not my legs, which means that something was Very Wrong.
Yesterday J, in Brian, picked the boy and I up from school, and we drove 160 miles to go and collect the other boy in order to go to Vanjamboree. We got there, J turned Brian off, as usual, loaded the Older Boy, got back into Brian and...... Nothing. Nada. Zip.
Nothing. No engine. No dash lights. No hazards. No nothing! Absolutely bugger all! Brian had slipped into a coma.
We had driven up with the lights on, so our first thought was that the dynamo had gone at some point, and the battery was flat, or that the dynamo was fine but the battery was old and unable to take a charge any more. We were not concerned. Through my bank account we have breakdown cover. We could get then to take us the 5 miles to J's parents, and then get a new battery in the morning. If it wasn't the battery, then we could get the AA to take us home on Sunday.
But when the breakdown service (which is run by the AA) sent a local garage lad out, who wasn't really sure what he was doing, I had that sinking feeling. And when he said he couldn't help us, that there was "something wrong with a wire somewhere" and that he "only gets 25 minutes a job" and that he was "ordering us a truck" the sinking feeling intensified.
And when the AA man on the phone (a very polite lad called Daniel) said that we only got 1 journey and that they would take us the 5 miles, but then charge us £49 +£2.50 a mile to get home to Norfolk (160 miles!) we knew we had to go home. At this point, we thought we were now thinking we would also have to make a phone call on Monday, to cancel the roof, which would mean we couldn't have it done until August, at least.
All in the garden was not rosy.
The boys were collected by J's parents, who also brought us sandwiches. Daniel organised a truck - for 2150, a wait of 2 hours. In the mean time however, he sent a proper AA man with a big yellow truck and everything.
These are his legs.
This Official Chap was amazing. Utterly amazing. Every rude thing I have ever thought or heard about the AA was obliterated by how professional, how knowledgeable, how thorough,how generally fabulous he was. He checked Brian's electrics in a logical manner, talked us through everything that he did, and explained anything I asked about. His name was Richard and if I could have kept a tiny clone of him in my glovebox instead of a Haynes manual, I would have. (Ok, that probably sounds a little stalkery, I don't mean it to be lol, but he was *that* great.)
However, at 2150, the Massive Truck turned up. It was HUGE. It had AA all over it. It had lights that flashed and some that didn't flash. It had a driver who was very Midlands and said "Ah... rooight" a lot, but waited patiently whilst we were finishing up the discussions about what was wrong.
Amazing Official Richard didn't just leave it as "Something wrong with the electrics". He found the exact place where the live stopped being live and isolated exactly what was wrong. He even got Brian to start again, but as it is pretty impossible to drive around with a jump pack coming from a T2 mid section, we still had to take the truck. Basically, the starter motor power lead has bust somewhere inside. This is not a problem, and had somewhere been open, we could have potentially fixed Brian except...... the post where the wire joins the starter motor was rusted solid. Even after two applications of WD-40 and a good wirebrushing, there was nothing doing. The whole starter motor was starting to turn instead of just the nut.
So Brian ended up here......
It's not right, is it? However, even an unconscious Brian was cooler than any other car in the car park we were in! But it was also 2215 by now, and we had a long journey ahead of us. However, we had hope that Brian would be in Romsey, near Southampton, on Wednesday night to start his roof on Thursday morning.
We had to swap trucks and drivers at Peterborough services. "Ahhhh roooight" was out of tachograph time, and I wish I knew his name because he was so gentle with Brian, and checked him all over once he was up on the ramp, double checked the straps, all that kind of thing.
The second truck driver was a local services chap, who was cheerful, chatty, helpful, discussed engines and so on with us for the last hour back to home. Brian was gently popped on the drive at 2am.
By 8 am we were at EuroCarParts in Lynn. The chap there was very helpful, tracked down what we needed and although they didn't have it there, they did have it in Peterborough, so off we trogged to Peterborough armed with their postcode, their phone number, in fact everything we could have needed from EuroCarParts Lynn.
I don't want to talk about EuroCarParts Peterborough, because my mother brought me up that if I can't say anything nice, then I shouldn't say anything at all.
Let's leave it as, well, at least we have a starter motor.
They had no leads suitable, so we went to GSF down the road, and they were brilliantly helpful, in the way that made us wish we'd gone there first. Even though they didn't have the leads, they knew a place that sold it off the roll, and gave us directions. We then didn't need the directions because the chap behind us said he was just off to there and we could follow him! Sorted!
Millfield Auto parts had the lead on a roll, as much as you wanted, and all the connectors, and I would loved to have had a proper look around the place, but we had to get back to phone The Mark, who, as we know from a previous post, is our secret weapon when Brian slips into a coma, as he has at the moment. There is no way we could get Brian in to Paul The Garage Man before Brian has to be in Romsey on Wednesday night to start his roof on Thursday morning. (Ok, I'm obsessing slightly about the roof. I know.)
So that's where we are now. On the sofa, waiting for The Mark to arrive, waiting to see what happens next. I'll update this when I know.
As there are so many companies in this post, I feel a round-up is in order!
AA - loved the official Richard, loved the trucking people, will not be saying it's ok to send me a local chap again as Brian is too specialist. I'm sure the chap would be great with the every day stuff! But I will be emailing them about Official Richard.
EuroCarParts - Lynn are great, superb customer service, excellent attitude! Peterborough had the part. And that's all I want to say about them.
GSF Peterborough - What lovely people! We'll be going there again for certain, and using their website more often.
Millfields Autos Peterborough - lots of obscure bits which I want to spend time going around and helpful service.
We've just had the phone call to say The Mark is on his way. After all, as I may or may not have mentioned, Brian has to be in Romsey, near Southampton, on Wednesday night to start his roof on Thursday morning, and a roof that lifts will enable us to live in many more interesting times!
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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