And I thought that my car was immune from anything more than the odd sheared bobbin......
I had my first full voltage failure whilst returning from our annual European Bash to see friends in Spa, Belgium. We did about 1000 miles over France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany and the car was fabulous. The difference having the Empire kit on was massive - last year the hopeless Belgian roads were treacherous, but this year were thoroughly entertaining. The new Spax Adjustables helped too of course, but overall the car handled really well and was by no means the slowest of the pack (TVR, 2x Se7ens, Lotus 340R, Morgan +4, 911 RS and a Smart Car!!).
I was the only one to get very very very wet though, with second place for wetness going to the 340R driver, but at least he had a windscreen. The rest of the 'girls' had their roves up. Typical August weather it was not.
We left yesterday in the rain and I had dipped lights on the whole way. I'd not noticed anything unusual about the car, probably on account of being smacked in the head by a million BB-guns as the rain tooled down, but things were about to get ugly. We were on the E25 into Liege when I saw the LOW VOLTAGE warning on the speedo so killed the lights immediately. This picked voltage up to a fairly hopeless 8.9v and I knew it was about to end badly. Car still running at this point though. We were headed for the E42 out of Liege but got routed through the centre and the mass of 2-lane, busy, truck-infested tunnels that make up their trunk road network. I was down to 8.3v as we entered a 1.6km tunnel and I was sure I'd grind to a halt in there and the risk was obvious. But it didn't stop, which was very handy! Volts now reading 8.2v and indicators stopped, the gauges stuck at 60mph and 3000rpm, the LCD panels went blank and the end was looming. Managed to pull off the E42 eventually and parked up. Lowest figure I'd seen was 7.8v and when we stopped the engine was still running - mighty impressive, all things considered!
Knowing what the likely fault was, I impressed my mates by pulling a replacement rectifier out of my boot (HD version) and was about to fit it when I noticed that both the earth strap and the earth lead from the rectifier were swinging in the air, so decided to attempt a fix of that issue first, just in case the Rectifier was actually OK. It was OK and the fix held till Calais, where it needed redone on account of me not having the right size connector nor crimping pliers (which I shall now buy and pack in the ever growing tool kit).
So my "Rectifier Failure" was nothing of the sort, just a wiring failure and I wonder how many others have had something similar? The earth lead is very heavy gauge and the fracture was actually almost back under the plastic outer, so it would have been easy for me to have thrown the OEM rectifier away in disgust, when actually it was fine.
The trip was fabulous, but I now have a VERY worn rear drive sprocket it appears and a really nasty sounding compensator with a heap more vibration throughout the whole car, so I fear a warranty conversation needs had with my dealer soon too.
But there's nothing quite as satisfying as a successful field repair is there!
Pictures below of the repair stop - note how much concern my learned colleagues are showing for my predicament....?!
