Our Garage - It’s Terminal!
Up until mid July it had been a busy few months for Deux Smurf as I decided to lay off the press cars and actually enjoy driving her again, and apart from a slight wobble from her steering she’s been almost perfect.
I say almost perfect because the other day, after a rather enthusiastic drive home from a school I work at, she completely died on me. Not a splutter, splutter, blurgh, kind of dying, but everything cut out, the wipers, music....everything.
What made matters slightly worse wasn’t that it happened during a monsoon, and I didn’t have a coat with me, but I was in between two temporary traffic lights in the middle of some roadworks, which didn’t go down too well with the other motorists. I was essentially blocking everyone! Oh yeah, my hazards weren’t working, either.
I thought the obvious culprit was the battery, or at least a connection to it, and I was right. Upon opening the bonnet and waggling both battery clamps the windscreen wipers and lights came back to life - it was the negative clamp that had become slightly loose.
So after pushing it down and making it somewhat secure I was able to restart Deux Smurf. Looking rather sodden and a tad embarrassed, I gave an apologetic wave to everyone, drove through the roadworks and returned to Muddy Towers.
The following day, when it eventually stopped raining, I found that the clamp was screwed as tight as it possibly could be, and with its new found ability to work its way loose at the most inopportune moments I temporarily put a screw between it and the terminal to stop it from moving.
The proper fix came from a pair of battery terminal sleeves from Euro Parts at a pricely sum of just £3.59.
These little beauties are designed to be fitted to batteries with small style terminals and therefore increase their diameter.
I wouldn’t say they slid on like a well oiled jackboot, but after a bit of stretching and filing I was able to slot it onto the terminal. After doing the same with the clamp, I tightened it up, and with an extra turn of the spanner, and waggle, I declared out loud, to the imaginary god of DIY mechanics "That isn’t going anywhere!"🤞