Landy Behaviour

[Lionelgee]

Hello SLOw members,

I have been charging Rowan's battery and as I don't like the idea of having battery chargers going in my wooden shed overnight I went out to check the progress of the charge. With the charger light still shining amber - not yet green for fully charged, I thought hmmm nothing on TV so I will change that front parking light assembly. I went back inside and grabbed a torch as it was about 8:30 at night and dark. I pulled the lamp assembly out - it was a new replacement non-genuine unit I only fitted a couple of weeks ago. Trouble is for some reason it would not hold the bulb in the plastic channel even when it was twisted to the lock position. The bulb would disconnect itself and therefore not do its intended job which is something simple that could cause Rowan to fail a roadworthy.

By the time I had finished the lamp replacement the battery was charged and I could disconnect everything for the night and have some peace of mind.

So is working on a Land Rover by torch light through choice and not necessity normal behaviour; or is it a special type of behaviour experienced by Land Rover addicts?

Kind Regards
Lionel

[THE BOOGER]

Its one of the symptoms of landroveritis not commonly found in the general population can be treated by years of therapy or you can just spent the money on your landy

[newhue]

torch is better than candle I guess, but hope the neighbours didn't see you.
It's hard to explain these actions of perfectly normal landy nutta behaviour to the wider community.
I usually have to run a lead to my shed, but if its a quick tinker the torch suffices.

[Col.Coleman]

Given the amount of practise Mr Lucas will give you, in time you will be able to perform the procedure without any form of visual assistance what-so-ever.

Sounds like you need a genuine trouble light. Problem is you normally have to fix that first

CC

[RR P38]

Perfectly normal behavior i would say.
I do get some strange looks from people when im working on my 38 with a head lamp on and a torch in one hand.
Children do have their curiosity aroused by these actions on a cold night much to the disgust of their parents especially when they are trying to get them to bed and you have them holding torches for you.

[isuzurover]

It is just landrover masochism and upside down thinking at work. I am sure Landrover engineers had the same logic.

I cannot understand why if you had power running to a battery charger you could not also run a work light?
Or move the battery outside if you were worried about the infinitessimal risk of h2 gas.

[numpty]

It is just landrover masochism and upside down thinking at work. I am sure Landrover engineers had the same logic.

I cannot understand why if you had power running to a battery charger you could not also run a work light?
Or move the battery outside if you were worried about the infinitessimal risk of h2 gas.

Interesting this, as there was a house fire on the Gold Coast a couple of days ago (completely destroyed) It reportedly started in the garage where the owner had a battery charger working

[isuzurover]

Interesting this, as there was a house fire on the Gold Coast a couple of days ago (completely destroyed) It reportedly started in the garage where the owner had a battery charger working

All the fires attributed to battery chargers appear to be due to faulty wiring and/or faulty chargers, rather than outgassing from the battery...

[Lionelgee]

Interesting this, as there was a house fire on the Gold Coast a couple of days ago (completely destroyed) It reportedly started in the garage where the owner had a battery charger working

Hello Numpty,
Well that is pretty freaky because the reason I put the battery charger and battery outside is because I had the charger going while I was at work. I was not comfortable leaving the charger going unattended inside my old shed which is built out of timber. The shed is also pretty close to my old Queenslander (weatherboard) house. A lot of fires have also been traced to innocuous things like DVD players and TV sets that have been left on standby mode while the owners are out of the house. So I was far from content with the idea of leaving an unattended battery charger going while I was at work.

IsuzuRover - now if I did hook up a work light I would have been tempted to do more than just one quick little job. The work light was thought of however I already had a crawl into bed at 1:00 am the previous Sunday night/Monday morning. That's right I decided to just do a quick little job then too. Once bitten twice shy, I got to bed at a slightly more respectable time the night I worked on reinstalling the front parking light.

If my thinking were well ordered maybe I would not have decided to buy a vehicle built in 1976, and an English vehicle at that.

Kind Regards
Lionel

[Lionelgee]

Hello All,

Well Landy Behaviour from a different perspective. I just found out why the other lamp unit would no longer hold the bulb. I put the correct bulb in the new replacement unit and hooked it up to the newly charged battery. I turned the ignition on and flicked the parking light switch on. I walked around to the front of the Land Rover and I checked how many parking lights were on. Only one ... and the new unit was the one that was not working. As it was on dusk something in the engine bay area caught my eye. The newly installed lamp wires were glowing bright red and smoking away. Before I could turn the ignition off and disconnect the battery the wires had melted through their insulation and the black plastic sleeve and then progressed to cut themselves off at the connectors. It was a very pretty red glow too

So from that behaviour I figure the previous lamp unit had stronger thicker wire which could carry the heat back to the plastic mount where the bulb was locked in. The heat from the current must have melted the plastic. With the plastic melted it could no longer hold the bulb.

So a simple disconnect and reconnect has turned out to be something a wee bit more complex - seems like Land Rover behaviour somehow.

The same parking light - driver's side - was not working when I first bought Rowan - I guess I know why now. Just have to work out the how and make this bit right. But not tonight as it is now dark

Kind Regards
Lionel