Mervin Motors on (continued)

For a long while, since last May in fact, Mervin has had a fault with his starter motor. On rare occasions, usually at the most inconvenient times he woud fail to start. More accurately he would fail to try to start. The starter just wouldn't engage and turn at all. At first I suspected an immobilser fault. Mervin was ex-British Airways and had two different alarm systems and a tracker installed, so his wiring is somewhat haywire, and I suspected the fault lay there.
Strangley the problem would manifest itself initially only at B & Q, which was wierd, as we have two branches locally and it happened consistently at both. You could start from cold, drive to B & Q and on attemptign to drive away with a warm engine the starter would fail to engage. He would start no problem with a push start. After suspecting a faulty battery, then the immobiliser triggered by some wierd radio mast interference (Both B & Q's have phone masts nearby) I eventually began to experience the problem elsewhere and diagnosed the starter solenoid as the source of the problem. The age old cure was applied (hitting it wiv a big 'ammer) and this worked for a while. I got used to parking front end out in case I had to push start, and facing the car downhill.
The problem occurred maybe every 6 or 7 days, and only ever when the car was warm, so it didn't let me down that often and always started easily with a push, which didn't bother me unduly, Mervins a lighweight and easily push started single handedly. It does however cause the nine year old daughter embarrasment at dance class apparently.
A new starter motor was going to be a major investment given Mervins street value of about £200 (including road tax and a full tank of fuel) so I held out until the day he let me down four times running as did local errands. I got him home and on examing the situation, sure enough the solenoid had jammed completely.
Thursday saw me stripping the starter motor off the van, not an easy feat in itself, involving as it did the removal of half the engine mount, but it came off eventually. I spent a morning cleaning the solenoid assembly and honing the bore, which was glazed and dirty looking. A spray of Asda brand WD40 and reassembly saw the car starting perfectly for oh, all of three times before the main starter motor failed to turn. The solenoid worked beautifully, if i may say so, clicking away nicely. The problem I later learned was that when the wiring is disturbed, the internal connections in the starter motor are disturbed too, and are often so oxidised and corroded that the delicate contact fractures. Now whilst I know enough about 'lectrickery to clean and rebuild the solenoid the main motor was beyond my ken.
Fortunatley we have a garage. Sisons, nearby in Hull who are motor rewind specialists. Could they rebuild my starter - yes they could, and at a reasonable price too. Better still, for the smae money £65, they could sell me a ready recondtioned one off the shelf on an exchange basis. Deal done.

New starter fitted and Mervin now starts like an eager thing that wants to start and get on with the day. In the recent past I have had to start him almsot immediatley I stuck the key in, otherwise the solenoid jammed as it warmed up. But that made starting difficult becasue the veg oil heater didn;t have time to reach temperature. Now it does, meaning cleaner easier and considerably quicker starts. Half a turn of the engine has got to be better at 6 a.m. than a diesel churning over for 30 or 40 seconds at a time 7 or 8 times, spluttering and coughing. Hopefully my neighbours are grateful.

Whilst in the fettling mood I also discovered that half of the oil heater wasn;t working due to a blown fuse - probably also a result of all the cold cranking. That was promptly changed.

And another irritating fault was fixed. Mervin has a bulkhead with a slot for the rear view and "emergency access" about twice the size of the average letter box. This allows a restricted but useful view with the interior mirror. Or at least ot would do if the rear view mirror didn't bounce aorund hanging off the sticky pad which fixes it to the windscreen. Well, with a further investment of a pound for a new sticky pad and a few minutes to clean the old one off and fix the new I now have a rock steady view to the rear. Which is nice. If I had been able to see behind me, and into the back of the van I wouldn't have brought home 6 parking cones and a bag of road grit which a colleague kindly loaded into the back as a joke!

With Mervin runing fine I now have to find another project to spend time on and I think Ebay might just have provided me with the very thing. Watch this space.