Thanks. I'm crazy about her -- and would happily give up many more chances to drive any car at all for her sake.
Still, there's time in the garage. The other day I had one of those high-and-low days. Or maybe I should say low-and-high.
The Jeep rarely breaks. But that doesn't mean it always works. As long as I've owned it -- which goes back to 1994 -- the turn signals haven't self-canceled after a turn. And more recently, the plastic mechanism for the turn signal broke apart inside the steering column -- so, no signals at all. Worse still, the upshot of the damage was that one rear tail light was now constantly on. This meant I had to take out the bulb back there if I didn't want to drain my battery.
Okay, fair enough. I order a new mechanism, and even a new stalk and some new bulbs. I go to work removing the steering wheel -- and realize with this car I'm going to need a steering wheel puller and also a lock plate remover. Compared to my 1972 Porsche, these 1983 Jeeps are much more complicated. So I go get the tools when I'm getting a sandwich for lunch. Then pull the wheel, undo the lock-ring thing, and put the new assembly in. Snaking the wire harness through the column cover is kind of tricky. But it gets there. Done.
And as a bonus, I'm going to have a straight steering wheel now, not the ****-eyed positioning that the PO settled for sometime before 1994.
But when it's back together, I see that
both rear tail lights are on. And the relay for the signal is maybe failing, because now nothing blinks. Nice new indicator stalk; but no indicating happening. It's one of those moments where the car had a problem when you started -- but now it's a lot worse when you're finished.
I'm very familiar with those moments.
I go back and eat my sandwich. Online, I look into the pricing for a new relay.
But I clean up the relay contacts and put a charger on the battery before I eat. The good news is that the relay is working just fine when I come back. And I see that I had the tail light problem diagnosed backward. The broken signal switch was making one of the rear lights go dark, not making the other light up. The problem is the brake switch, which is the kind that lights up the lights when it's released, not pressed. It's either moved out of position or I have a failing return spring. But when I pull the pedal back (and engaged the button on the switch) the lights go out and everything is fine.
Back to Google. It seems the consensus on the brake switch is that it's easy enough to adjust, so long as you have long fingers and an additional joint in your arm midway between the wrist and the elbow. Short of that, you're better off scrapping the original switch altogether and putting a hydraulic one in at the master cylinder.
The one thing everyone online agrees on is that you do
not want to simply bend the tab on the pedal arm in order to affect the adjustment. It will break off and need to be welded back on -- and you'll need those long fingers and additional wrist-elbow joint for that, too.
I go out a couple of times, twist myself in there with a flashlight, try to get to it, come back and re-checked on Google.
I just want to bend that tab.
I knew it was wrong, but my lazy nature is a powerful foe. In I went, finally, with some pliers with the right angle, and --
-- it worked great. The lazy man's adjustment set the gap where I wanted it. Now I had turn signals and brake lights.
And when I took it out to test drive it, the cancel ring was now working, too. Just taking it apart and putting it together had done the trick (or maybe the replacement mechanism solved the problem -- who knows). But after 18 years of manually canceling the indicator, it's a real joy to see it snap back by itself.
A garage maxim: the longer you let something stay broken, the more you'll appreciate the improvement when you finally fix it.
For the last couple of days, I've been driving the Jeep instead of the BMW -- in spite of the lack of AC. I'm just enjoying having working turn signals that much.
