Wednesday, 4 December 2024

The Old Switcheroo

Alpine jobs first thing. Decided to look at the indicator and why it's not flashing at all or too fast. 

So I dismantled the unit (that's not too hard) and found that indicator came on with the bulb being jiggled - but it was still too fast. Everything pointed to a bad earth so I started by directly earthing the unit to the battery.

No joy - but in doing so I noticed if I held the bulb half way in it flashed correctly... Ah that's a clue. But to what ? Next I thought I'd see if there was a wiring issue as the lights worked too so power was getting down there and earthing for that OK. Tracing the wires I noticed that it was easy to switch the connections around so I did.


As soon as I switched them around it behaved and flashed at normal speed. In fact the side light also shone at the same brightness either side. Umm. I guess the power was wrong for each filament in the bulb so it impacted both. 

I still don't know why the original red to red and green to green was wrong though - mind you the colours are not correct looking at the manual.

Then I put the lights back together which is the harder part. But we were all done within an hour so I stopped there. Although I did more the Golf one bay over though for tomorrow.

Then PM the RGEA meeting so a SAAB run to the pub in the gloom. On the way back the A14 was closed but the Tarmac Gods were with me and almost all the lights turned green as I approached.

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