Our Bob Is An Awesome Bob!

Home! In the past week Bob’s done over 1000 miles (inc 350 today over 10 hours) and hasn’t missed a beat. What a girl!

I’ll post all the details of Stonehenge & Devon next weekend when we’re back from holiday part II in Suffolk.

A weekend of maintenance on Bob saw us (as in Dad assisted by H & I) get loads of jobs done both in readiness for camping and because they really needed to be done.

In no particular order we:

• Checked the front brakes – all good.
• Connected the pipes on the water tank properly so they don’t leak.
• Worked out why the water pump wasn’t working (and identified that it will probably need a return valve).
• Made sure that the oil was OK and at the right level.
• Tested the fridge to make sure it works on gas – it does!
• Put draft excluder on the louvre windows to stop it blowing a gale through the back.
• Did a temporary fix on the clunking wiper arms that stopped the clunking and will keep them going until a permanent solution in the autumn.
• Fixed down the kick plate properly.
• Put together a small spares kit to carry around and checked that the jack worked.
• Did a few small bodywork repairs.
• Gave the windows a proper clean.
• Stopped the rear hatch from rattling.
• Re-aligned the passenger-side door after last month’s fence post accident.
• Made it possible to shut the engine bay lid without having to bang it to with your fist.

In addition to all that we sorted out various electrical issues. The electric windscreen washers have never worked. We were told when we bought Bob that it just needed some water in it, but we filled it up and it still didn’t work. When we pulled back the panel to look this is what we found – a mass of wires and a washer motor hanging loose behind the front panel. The motor was broken. It was simply too old and weak to pump the water up to the washer jets. We went and bought a replacement and fitted it on a hand-made bracket to stop it rattling around.

The wiring was something else. To the left  is a picture of the washer switch, which as you can see had been wired in using speaker cable. Not wanting to leave the dashboard wiring in such a state we went about rewiring various sections and re-routing wires which seem to have been put in without any thought to keeping things manageable and/or tidy. Behind the fuse box we found two still- live wires that had simply been cut off and left untaped and potentially dangerous.

To add to the wiring woes, we found that one of the inside strip lights was overheating and burning its circuits when you switched it on. Thankfully we never used the light, although if we had I hope the amount of smoke it gave off would have alerted us to the danger.

In all, we removed a substantial number of wires that were either dangerous, too long, incorrect or, as was the case a number of times, simply not needed anymore as the components that they had once served had been removed and the wires left for posterity.

Since we’ve owned Bob the number of (quickly sorted) shortcuts we have found to have been made during her restoration has been alarming but accepted with light-hearted sighs, but when it involves dodgy and potential very dangerous electrics it’s difficult not to have a sense of humour bypass.

On the plus side Bob ran beautifully and barring a loss of main-beam for a stretch on the way home (a loose cable on the fuse board) gave us no problems whatsoever – a fantastic improvement over last time I drove her to Stratford way back in January.