A couple of nights ago, W got home from work and told me that the lights were playing up in her car - if she indicated right, the lights went on to full beam, and if she pulled the stalk towards herself, it stayed there…
Hmmm.
So while she was at her friend’s house earlier for a cup of tea and a girlie chat, I thought “I know, I’ll get a shit-load of brownie points if I got and sort the lights out on the car”.
So there I am, in minus 5 degrees (or whatever it is) outside, on my knees on the drive, taking half of the steering column off the car to get at the various switches and stuff.
The immediate reason for the lights not working correctly was obvious - somehow she had managed to wrench the stalk so it was kind of doing “the next thing” all the time, instead of what it should have been doing (that’s the best description I can give without getting into a really boring description of the problem with really stupid looking diagrams).
So - I carefully wrench the indicator stalk back into place - being careful not to snap it off (can you imagine the trouble I would have been in?).
So - we now have full beam, and it’s spring loaded so you can flash people if you want… great. Only now the lights stay on all the time. I even turn the ignition completely off… haha - the first car ever to have full stalk controls with no keys in the ignition.
By this time I am starting to panic. She’s going to think I wrecked the car.
After another root around in the bit of the mechanics I can get to, I try forcing something that probably got bent when the whole mechanism was mangled… and may presto, if you don’t breath on any of it, the lights work correctly… well… most of the time.
About ten minutes after that, W turned back up and I gave her the good/bad news. After going outside and playing with the lights for herself, she though at least being able to have lights was better than flashing people every time she turned right… so I was off the hook.
Bloody cars.