Quality of recovery mechanics.

Best course of action. Although they normally provide some amusement when you really do find out what's wrong. My most memorable ones being the 'collapsed wheel bearing', where I removed the wheel trim and asked the recovery mechanic if the wheel nuts should possibly be attached to something. Or the brand new transit that got towed in with no crank, with diagnosis as an 'earth fault', because the low brake fluid warning light came on when you turned the ignition key to crank. All transits do that, and you could forgive someone who'd never driven a transit for not knowing, but the recovery vehicle was a transit.... That turned out to be dodgy ECU.

Been there, had that problem, usually find out the temporary repair is no where near the place they've wrote on the sheet.

lol very true.

That may be so, but like I said, the member pays for the service, and it is for his benefit, not yours. If he wants his car fixing there and then, that is what is done, if possible.

The ol' SD1 refused to start one day when out and hot. Wouldn't turn over

- although the battery was ok. Sticking starter solenoid, I'd guess. RAC man got it started by connecting the car battery and his slave one in

*series*. I'm surprised the car electronics survived this, but they did. He'd obviously got more balls than me.

Yup - had a breakdown some time ago with a caravan - coupling came adrift, front dropped onto brake lever and bent it so brakes would no longer work while towing..

Had R*C specialist membership for caravanners

Full facts given

First recovery man arrived to couple the van up to his tow ball - not a good idea under the circumstances

second man came to put the van onto his low loader - was going to put van on loader then lower the caravan corner steadies to hold it level. Seemed a little surprised when I pointed out that if he did this, by the time he had gone over a few bumps (think about it!) - my faulty coupling would have turned into a written off caravan (corner steadies pounding on moving platform would very quickly have bent the body work.)

After 5 hours - yes 5 hours - of this (on the main Bristol road in Northfield, Birmingham - Gave up while waiting for no. 3 to come along. He must have got it right - the van was in the repairers the next day, still in one piece (apart from the coupling and brake lever)

NB very friendly insurance brokers, sadly no longer there, supplied self, wife, kids with shelter etc.

In news: snipped-for-privacy@pipex.net, Andrew Carr scribed for want of a better word:

Everything from good to bad Engine stopped whilst on way to company Christmas dance, BB Van arrived could not be fixed, where did I want towed to, (rapid calculation Xmas dance arrive on time but no way of getting car fixed next morning, or Office near Xmas dance, err Office please ) Arrived at office carpark dumped car and Taxi to Dance next morning, no garages available so a Knowlegeble collegue had a look, opened stuck points and Idrove it for another two years

1. Pulled out to overtake a lorry on the motorway (week old Pug206) suddenly nothing and slowed to a stop in the fast lane, The lorry driver held up the traffic whilst I managed to pass, by coasting then using the starter motor to get on hard shoulder Royal Aircraft Commander arrived and a plastic accelorator link had shattered he used bits and bobs of old bolts and connectors, and I was mobile again
2. Brand new Ford Fiesta, would never start I pushed it more miles than I driven it, BB, Royal Aircraft Comm etc gave up, I was on holiday in the lakes whilst all this pushing was going on, a small local garage had a look for me fitted a new dist cap to replace the brandnew cracked one, and never had a problem since

I work in electronics myself and we all remember the bad problems, it is not bad engineers just mystery problems that someone else notices, except for the stuck points I will go with that

This used to be a common trick to start rebuilt engines for the first time. Not that many electronics on an SD1 to kill, is there?

It was also used by the Ford works rally team on the MK2 Escort BDA's. If you stalled one on a stage they would never crank. If you push-started them they used to slip the cam belt. They fitted two batteries and extra starting solenoids where the rear seats would be. This put the two batteries in series whilst cranking, but left one battery unconnected at all other times. Initially the slave battery was left not charging, but the batteries were swapped over at each service. Later, a caravan split-charge relay was fitted.

I found this out "unofficially" in order to convert a friend's rally car that I looked after.

Chris

How? Just because the drive is applied the other way - is that really sufficeint to make the belt skip or is there another reason.

Depending on why the coupling came off, this is a perfectly sound way of moving it. 99% of uncouplings are down to the coupling not being fastened properly, in this case, if there was no fault with the coupling then if would be fine to move it this way.

I think you might find that the corner steadies are attached to the chassis, not the bodywork.

It's bollocks. We've had all this before. The cambelt can't tell whether the crankshaft is being turned by the starter or by the wheels.

Steve

I'm not sure, but always assumed that because of the degree of tuning, the cam profiles would have had steep ramps on them. Also the valve springs would have been uprated. The cam belt was probably marginal for the job anyway. When cranking on the starter motor the acceleration of all parts of the engine up to cranking speed would have taken a finite amount of time.

When push starting, there would have been a much more sudden shock loading from the crankshaft to the belt. I imagine it was this that often used to cause the belt to jump a tooth.

I don't think this was a problem with road-going BDA's, only highly tuned ones. Bear in mind this was the mid '70's, pre ECU/fuel injection times! Ignition was still by a mechanical distributor with contact breaker points. The standard power output was only around 120bhp but the works cars were reputed to put out 260! This made them "interesting" to drive on the road sections between stages.

Chris

Quite a bit. Ignition. EFI ECU. OBC. Radio. Central locking. Alarm.

I was involved in Rallying in the mid 70's. One of the things I did was to work as part of the service crew for a MK2 Escort BDA that was driven by someone who was a top three finisher at national level. I can assure you that bump-starting a car with a tuned BDA lump was almost *guaranteed* to cause the belt to jump a tooth! Why would the Ford works cars of that era have gone to the trouble of, and carried the weight penalty of, a twin battery set up? (See my earlier post).

I don't know whether my explanation of the shock loading of the bump start causing the belt to jump is correct, or whether there is some other explanation but it is *not* "bollocks"! I know - I've had to refit the belt after it has happened more than once.

The driver whose Escort I helped look after was in the lucky position of knowing someone who worked for David Sutton cars. (They prepared the works Escorts.) Our information about this problem and how to overcome it came from them...

Chris

Yes, I agree that was a bit of a risk then. Of course, the radio, central locking and alarm need not have been powered up at this time.

Whilst actually cranking, the combined battery voltage would only have been around 14. What I used to do was arrange for someone to hold the key over to the cranking position whilst making the final jump lead connection. This was on cars that had an electro-mechanical voltage regulator as the most sophisticated device on them however :-)

Chris

The radio 'memory', the central locking controller and the alarm are obviously powered up all the time. Otherwise they wouldn't work when you needed them. ;-)

WEll bumpstarting a car with a rally clutch is generally a lot more violent than cranking it over with the starter.

Have you looked under a caravan then? I can assure you my front corner steadies are bolted through the floor, not to the chassis. And caravan floors are made of notoriously thin plywood. The rears are attached to the chassis, but these too are not particularly strong, indeed some vans with aluminium chassis have a known tendency to crack. Some manufacturers used to say that towing with a 4x4 would void the chassis warranty!

You cannot please all of the people all of the time, only some of the people some of the time.

Not everyone wants taking straight to a garage without even lifting the bonnet, likewise some do not want their cars touching at the roadside....just shipping to a garage.

Think about what it would be like if AA/RAC/Green Flag/Britannia/Direct line etc closed.or did not work 24/7.

At least you have an option when you are stuck and want some help.

I wouldn't want that... home is the only place I'd want recovering to. If I can't do it myself (rare), I know a man who can ;-)

Like France I'd guess...

That's what I pay for.