[tl:gallery size=180×180]After a weekend in the Sprite at Stowford Farm Meadows on the Reader Rally, it was obvious that there were some areas needing attention. The main one was the lack of a water supply. Mrs Donnelly noticed this quite early on, but a water pump is expensive and there were some far cheaper things to fix first.
First up was a badly damaged 12S plug. This shows the classic sign of having been crushed by a jockey wheel. It’s easily done. If you don’t clip the plug out of the way, it drags on the floor when you are pushing the van around. And magnetically it seems to [tl:gallery size=180×180]get dragged under the jockey wheel. Replacing it is a simple task.
The replacement plug was sourced from Home Counties Camping Centre in Shepperton and cost £6. Tools required for the job are a Philips and a electrical screwdriver. Simply split the remains of the old plug and swap the wires over to the new one. Fiddly, but not difficult, and not worth paying a workshop for.
While I was there, I cleaned up the 12N plug too. This was covered in muck but by removing the plastic cover, I was able to clean it up and reattach the wire to pin 4. It was making an intermittent connection which explained the lazy operation of the right-hand indicators.
[tl:gallery size=180×180]The next job was related to the first and completely my own fault. I didn’t disconnect the battery before swapping the plug and the result was a handful of blown fuses. Lesson learned, I went inside the Sprite to replace all the stricken fuses and was stuck by how difficult they were find. All the fuses are in-line ones which meant I had to dig about to find them. Everything is now working again, but a cheap, practical little upgrade is to switch to a fixed fusebox. I found a suitable one in the accessory shop at Discover in Darlington. Under a fiver and once installed, it will really tidy up the low-voltage wiring.
