Disaster Strikes Again (Nearly)

Last year we headed off to Yorkshire to visit my family, and we got as far as Hopwell Services before disaster struck since then we've done a lot of work on Katy so this year we loaded up for the trip again and headed off full of confidence.

Tank full of diesel, milk in the fridge and all our clothes and gadgets on board we were full of joy.

One stop I wanted to do was to put some air in the rear tyres as the pressure gauge I used was showing them a little low so we stopped at the local ASDA petrol station, popped another 5 psi into the tyres and jumped into the cab, turned the key and NOTHING... HAPPENED ..

There was a click like I've heard when I had a bad battery, but no electric fuel pump working which was odd as we'd just driven here and she was running fine.

I got the booster pack out and clipped that on, and still nothing. Looked around and I couldn't see anything obvious so after about 15 minutes I gave up and called on GEM recovery who sent Celtic to our rescue

The breakdown guy attached his power pack and the same, checked the battery with a voltmeter and it showed a constant 12v when we tried to start her so the battery was declared fine. He then headed under the bonnet and declared it a starter motor problem despite my protestations that the fuel pump was turned on before the starter engaged, and then decided it was a problem with the immobiliser and tried opening the dashboard and binnacle before being thankfully frightened off by all the wiring. It was decided we needed a specialist and therefore we would have to be recovered.

I decided to go to Steve Walford's place as it would be a safe place to leave her if we had to abandon her because we could move her around with a tractor. Steve was having his lunch, so we got her from the recovery truck and the recovery driver left us.

Then came the magic bit.

Steve said he would take a quick look, tried starting her once, felt the battery terminals and declared he had found the problem to be a loose connection. One twist of the connector and she started.

Not wanting to let us go with such a fix Steve refitted the connector and some auxiliary wires properly and we were off on holiday.

The lessons are to think calmly and logically, stick to the problem, and that there is no substitute for experience