Thursday 29 June 2017

Big load? The Volvo isn't floored

We picked up the ingredients for flooring the lean-to conservatory in a house in Birmingham today. These included four sheets of 8' x 4' plywood (or their metric equivalent), all of which - fortunately - needed cutting down slightly. I had measured the boot of the 240 and ascertained that they would fit, albeit at an angle.

It was a tighter squeeze than I'd thought but, after we'd moved the front seats and tilted the backs forward, and with a bit of juggling, everything fitted. That's two sheets of 1.99m and two of 1.77m length, by 1.22m wide (and 18mm thick). There are six packs of laminate flooring in there too.

Getting it out at the other end was, somehow, harder work. Now all I have to do is make it all fit in the house. (I've not attempted this sort of thing before.)

After the heat wave of last week, some boats near us have had their stoves going. Not us.

Oh, back to the Volvo: when I started it up today the ignition warning lamp stayed on. The alternator belts were still in place. I switched off and on again, this time the lamp went out. Coming away from the builders' yard the same thing happened. I think that, after 199,000 miles, the alternator may be giving up. Come on, car, just another thousand miles! You can do it!

3 comments:

Davidss said...

Intermittent fault like that, on a vehicle with that mileage, it's likely to be worn out alternator brushes. If my diagnosis is correct, the problem will only get worse, and fairly rapidly.
A fairly straightforward job if you are that way inclined, otherwise the task is to find someone who will repair rather than replace.
It is a bit of a multi-skilled task, because it calls for work on the car, and work on electrical bits. It's surprising to me how many people claim to have only one of those skills, not both.

Good Luck

Unknown said...

Bring back the austin 1100 control box. High voltage applied to all 12 volt circuits. Still remember the photographic flash emitted from the headlights (and all the lights for that matter). Still that was the last bit of light that came out of any of the bulbs!

Halfie said...

David, thanks for that. It's been an intermittent fault, but interestingly even when the ignition warning light stays on, the charging system is working. Battery voltage 14 point something volts.

Russel, yes, that was one of the many exciting things which my various cars did! I remember it vividly. I suppose I just turned the car round and slunk back to Halls with no lights.