Broke down again last night 
In the middle of nowhere.
Well, I say middle of nowhere, it would technically be a 10 minute walk to the nearest town and cars were passing me every minute, but seeing as there was thick fog, I was in the middle of a moor, it was dark and I was cold and hungry and I had slowly defrosting food in the back of the car (just been to Tescos), it seemed that all was lost and I was soon to perish upon the moor, ne'er to be seen, nor heard of, again.
Was going up a hill when I suddenly lost power and the battery warning light came on.
That's not normal I thought.
Manged to coast up to the brow of the hill and pulled over to the side of the road a little further down and cranked the hazard lights on.
First thought was that the battery was low on power (yeah, ok, it was the heat of the moment ) so I pulled the radio face out and disconnected the sat nav and tried to turn the key, whilst crossing my fingers. Due to my crossed fingers, it proved hard to turn the key and as such, I spent 10 minutes trying to get the key to the "II" position. Eventually I gave up, uncrossed my fingers and turn the key normally.
The car would turn, but would not fire.
My second thought, seeing as the last time I broke down with very similar symptoms, was that the new fuel pump had packed in. I turned the key to the "I" position, and to my delight, heard the fuel pump priming. I was very relieved, more because of the fact that it meant I had not wasted my money on ebay.
Opened the boot, grabbed the multimeter, "popped the hood" (as Americans say) and checked the battery. Thankfully it was still there.
"Screw this", I thought, reaching for the RAC card I have in the glove box. Gave them a call only to hear the dreaded "We are exceptionally busy at the moment, your call is important to us and you are in a strict queuing system, yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah........ <cue annoying and repetitive hold music> We are exceptionally busy at the moment, your call is important to us and you are in a strict queuing system, yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah........ <cue annoying and repetitive hold music> We are exceptionally busy at the moment, your call is important to us and you are in a strict queuing system, yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah........".
I went through the pain barrier and finally got through to someone. They took my details and to my horror, said "That's all sorted, we should have someone with you within 90 minutes"
So there I was.. on a foggy moor, cold, tired, hungry and all I wanted to do was get home, strip off and watch my The Sound of Music singalong DVD I got for christmas.
To make things worse, I saw one of my colleagues drive by! I noticed her turn around to look at me! She just got into work, so I wound her up about it a little; she said that she thought it could have been me, but wasn't sure as the last she knew that I live in Swansea. Little did she know that I moved house 4 days ago! I said I was only winding her up - I had the RAC on the way and there was nothing she would have been able to do anyway!
Anyhoo, waited around for an eternity, before the repairman turned up - ended up spending an eternity on describing to him exactly where I was! "Well, I can see some horses next to me, and there are some lights in the distance, looks like about 20 of them or so".
He got there and to cut a long story short, we spent 30 mins working out that the distributor (not the cap) was knackered - we (he) opened it up and saw a load of metal filings inside it!
Much to the RAC man's suprise, I said "Oh, I have a spare one of those at home in the shed!"
My Dad had sent it to me a while back for some reason - I think I just needed a new dizzy cap, but (thankfully) he sent the entire unit!
The RAC man towed me the 7 miles back to my new house and we parked up outside my house, I grabbed a worringly soft bag of 'frozen' oven chips and put them in the freezer.
With that importance out the way, I opened the shed and found the old distributor in a plastic bag- pulled it out and handed it to the RAC man. He quickly changed it over, then changed over the vacuum advance diaphrams, set the timing by ear and the job was a goodun!
One working car again!
Whilst he was working on the car, I brought him a cup of tea, and a plate with 4 freshly bought bourbon biscuits! Lucky chap. I did offer to cook him some dinner but he politely declined, muttering something about me being "a f*cking wierdo". It was only going to be a pizza anyway, nothing major.
I also got him to check the leaking around the fuel filter outlet too - turned out the entire pipe to the carb was cracked due to the degredation of the rubber in the hose. He just replaced the entire thing and secured it with jubilee clips.
... and that was my Monday evening.
In the middle of nowhere.
Well, I say middle of nowhere, it would technically be a 10 minute walk to the nearest town and cars were passing me every minute, but seeing as there was thick fog, I was in the middle of a moor, it was dark and I was cold and hungry and I had slowly defrosting food in the back of the car (just been to Tescos), it seemed that all was lost and I was soon to perish upon the moor, ne'er to be seen, nor heard of, again.
Was going up a hill when I suddenly lost power and the battery warning light came on.
That's not normal I thought.
Manged to coast up to the brow of the hill and pulled over to the side of the road a little further down and cranked the hazard lights on.
First thought was that the battery was low on power (yeah, ok, it was the heat of the moment
) so I pulled the radio face out and disconnected the sat nav and tried to turn the key, whilst crossing my fingers. Due to my crossed fingers, it proved hard to turn the key and as such, I spent 10 minutes trying to get the key to the "II" position. Eventually I gave up, uncrossed my fingers and turn the key normally.The car would turn, but would not fire.
My second thought, seeing as the last time I broke down with very similar symptoms, was that the new fuel pump had packed in. I turned the key to the "I" position, and to my delight, heard the fuel pump priming. I was very relieved, more because of the fact that it meant I had not wasted my money on ebay.
Opened the boot, grabbed the multimeter, "popped the hood" (as Americans say) and checked the battery. Thankfully it was still there.
"Screw this", I thought, reaching for the RAC card I have in the glove box. Gave them a call only to hear the dreaded "We are exceptionally busy at the moment, your call is important to us and you are in a strict queuing system, yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah........ <cue annoying and repetitive hold music> We are exceptionally busy at the moment, your call is important to us and you are in a strict queuing system, yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah........ <cue annoying and repetitive hold music> We are exceptionally busy at the moment, your call is important to us and you are in a strict queuing system, yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah........".
I went through the pain barrier and finally got through to someone. They took my details and to my horror, said "That's all sorted, we should have someone with you within 90 minutes"
So there I was.. on a foggy moor, cold, tired, hungry and all I wanted to do was get home, strip off and watch my The Sound of Music singalong DVD I got for christmas.
To make things worse, I saw one of my colleagues drive by! I noticed her turn around to look at me! She just got into work, so I wound her up about it a little; she said that she thought it could have been me, but wasn't sure as the last she knew that I live in Swansea. Little did she know that I moved house 4 days ago! I said I was only winding her up - I had the RAC on the way and there was nothing she would have been able to do anyway!
Anyhoo, waited around for an eternity, before the repairman turned up - ended up spending an eternity on describing to him exactly where I was! "Well, I can see some horses next to me, and there are some lights in the distance, looks like about 20 of them or so".
He got there and to cut a long story short, we spent 30 mins working out that the distributor (not the cap) was knackered - we (he) opened it up and saw a load of metal filings inside it!
Much to the RAC man's suprise, I said "Oh, I have a spare one of those at home in the shed!"
My Dad had sent it to me a while back for some reason - I think I just needed a new dizzy cap, but (thankfully) he sent the entire unit!
The RAC man towed me the 7 miles back to my new house and we parked up outside my house, I grabbed a worringly soft bag of 'frozen' oven chips and put them in the freezer.
With that importance out the way, I opened the shed and found the old distributor in a plastic bag- pulled it out and handed it to the RAC man. He quickly changed it over, then changed over the vacuum advance diaphrams, set the timing by ear and the job was a goodun!
One working car again!
Whilst he was working on the car, I brought him a cup of tea, and a plate with 4 freshly bought bourbon biscuits! Lucky chap. I did offer to cook him some dinner but he politely declined, muttering something about me being "a f*cking wierdo". It was only going to be a pizza anyway, nothing major.
I also got him to check the leaking around the fuel filter outlet too - turned out the entire pipe to the carb was cracked due to the degredation of the rubber in the hose. He just replaced the entire thing and secured it with jubilee clips.
... and that was my Monday evening.
Last edited:
