The Camping Holiday Of Despair (by alaric)
In the morning... the battery was dead flat. One of the other little quirks of this thing is that the headlight switch is a bit wobbly, and sometimes switches itself on due to vibrations. We'd checked it before we left, but a lot of tractors thundered down the road and made the whole thing shake (we felt them through the night...), so we guessed one of them had turned it on at some point.
Now, it does have two batteries. There's an auxiliary battery that runs the lights and things in the back, with a relay so it only connects to the engine electrical system when the alternator is running, for charging, but is otherwise isolated. We walked to a nearby petrol station and bought some jump leads to try and jump start it from its own auxiliary battery, but without any spanners (and the petrol station didn't sell them) I couldn't safely move things around to get to the battery terminals, as the batteries are accessed from the side in a little cupboard with perhaps a centimetre's clearance between the battery terminals and the chassis of the vehicle above. We hadn't realised at the time that the bit of metal the batteries were bolted to was loose, so I thought I wouldn't be able to pull the batteries out to get at the terminals safely, so we decided to wait until a friend came to give us a jumpstart (I thought I'd be able to get a connection to the engine battery OK).
In the meantime, we made a replacement hose to feed the exhaust air into the air filter, by buying lots of cans of soft drinks from the petrol station drinking them, cutting them open and unrolling the, then re-rolling them to the correct diameter.
The friend arrived and took us off for lunch, then we came back to try the jumpstart. Problem: the battery cupboard is on the side of the campervan, rather than at the front under the bonnet, so the only way to make the jump leads reach would be to park the car alongside us, totally blocking the road (which saw about a car a minute). Not a great option.
Luckily, while we were seen standing around with jump leads looking worried, one of the people who lived there came out with some tools to work on his land rover, asked if we needed anything, and lent me the correct spanner to undo the batteries. So I just swapped the two batteries over and, with our new pipe in place, tried to start the engine.
As we'd suspected, no luck - just as it had with the RAC guy the day before, it would splutter a bit from time to time, but never quite start for more than a couple of seconds.
So, resignedly, we gave Sarah's father directions to drive down in my van with Jean and find us to be towed back.
When he came, later that evening, we tied the campervan behind my van and, with Sarah and him in the campervan to apply brakes and steering and Jean and I in the van towing, we set off. But even with our longest rope, it was still too risky - whenever I even let go of the accelerator, the van would slow down, and Sarah's father had only split seconds to hit the brakes to avoid careening into the back of the van. So we pulled up in Warminster town centre and called the RAC again to get a proper tow truck.
And, thus, finally made it home. At least we made it to the wedding, but our planned bank holiday weekend exploring was replaced with one spent mainly stuck in the middle of nowhere waiting for rescue.
And, oh, it's not over - as I sit writing this on the train down to London, on Monday evening, I find out that I've taken the van keys with me by accident, leaving the van blocking Barbara's garage so her car can't get out, so they're going to break the steering lock to let it be moved. My poor van... I want to rush back on the next train with the keys and move it so they won't harm it, but I know that's stupid; I need to get to London, and be away from my home and family, because I have a meeting with clients tomorrow morning...
Tue 6th May 2008 11:12 am 
Subscribe
By Mike, Tue 6th May 2008 @ 11:34 am
Get some more keys cut for your van! Ever since I threw away the one key I had for a car accidently, I always have at least two sets of all the keys just in case.
By alaric, Tue 6th May 2008 @ 3:13 pm
Yeah... we looked into that, but since the van has a passive anti-theft system, copying the keys is complex since the keys have to contain an RFID challenge-response device that satisfies the special security computer thingy 🙁
I've considered having just dumb keys cut, though - ones that could then open the doors and turn the ignition key to release the steering lock, if not actually engage the starter motor and fuel pump!
By Mike, Tue 6th May 2008 @ 8:43 pm
Lot's of places can now copy ford keys of about that age, it doesn't need a ford dealer. New time you go into town ask a few of the bigger key cutting places.
By Becca, Tue 6th May 2008 @ 11:15 pm
(Van) need glue.... you know this has become Olly's answer to everything broken now!
By alaric, Tue 6th May 2008 @ 11:41 pm
Background: When Jean and Sarah's father turned up in the van, I told Jean that the campervan was broken, since she knows the concept of 'broken' all too well, to which she replied that it needed glue... as most things she breaks, I repair with glue 😉
Also, she started referring to it as the "smelly van", presumably due to the unburnt fuel vapours that kept coming out of the exhaust pipe when we were trying to start it.
By alaric, Wed 7th May 2008 @ 3:34 pm
Anyway, turns out the van's amazing security computers were TOO GOOD for them to break into, thankfully, so it remains unbroken!
They managed to roll it back a bit and bounce it across and my aunt got out, and I posted the keys which have now arrived.
So all is well.
By Lionel, Thu 15th May 2008 @ 9:23 am
I seem to remember another horror story - several months back – about a painful journey to a far-away wedding!
Tell your as yet unmarried friends to live in sin - it's cheaper all round...
(and I never go anywhere without jump leads)