It is now 8:00am (Tuesday) and I am taking the caravan to Longtons at Carnforth to see if they can fix the lights. At worst I can still depart providing I avoid driving in the dark, but I would prefer to have things fixed properly. All this has destroyed my overall plan for this first day of my trip to Scotland (more of that later), but now I must go out and see if the car will start up this morning - wish me luck.
Tuesday, 21 April 2015
A difficult start
So for the first time ever I decided to hitch the car to the caravan the night before departure. Having done so at 3:00pm yesterday, (Monday) I found that one rear indicator light and the rear side lights on the caravan were not working. Two hours of fiddling with WD40, checking bulbs and dismantling and reassembling multi-pin plugs I ended up with the indicator working, but still no side lights. I then found that I had left the ignition switched on in the car and the battery was flat - it was now 5:30 pm and Gimmer was due to arrive at 6:00 pm for a meal and evening chat. I rang Green Flag for a home start up. Gimmer arrived and we prepared a meal which involved oven chips - at the point with eight minutes oven time left Green Flag arrived. The car was started, but then needed a minimum half hour's run to re-charge the battery. Oven chips were now ready. We left the car on tick over and bolted our food then went off on a tour of my domain.
Oh dear. Duff caravan lights are a common fault if the 'van has been left for any time. In my experience the most common causes are the caravan plug & car socket not making a good connection due to mucky contacts, a duff connection at the screw contacts in the caravan plug, or the individual bulb contacts themselves.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with it.
JJ
JJ- 'twas fixed quickly and I was away from Longtons at 9:25. Now on my way to Richmond. All will become clear in next post.
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