Tuesday 29th Jan. Lighting issues.

The weather must be warming up as I found myself out in the garage on a school night! Most unusual lately!  The side lights on the Red Shed had been bugging me for a little while. A quick check a few weeks back revealed most things working except the side lights, windscreen wipers and dashboard lights.

The wipers had already been cured by changing the switch, now it was the turn of the sidelights. I had spare switch in stock, but while this operated the side lights, it wouldn't work the headlights. The switch in the car would operate the headlights, but not the side lights!

So, with trepidation, I removed the switch and started carefully stripping it down. Trying to carefully detach all of the small parts so I could see how it all pieced together again was challenging to say the least.

Inside the switch is a small rocker assembly. Both of these were full of a gooey green paste which I think used to be grease. All of the small copper pieces were a nice shade of light blue where they had corroded over the years as well. Careful cleaning of these pieces followed and then the arduous task of fitting them all back together began. Once I was satisfied that all were back together properly, I stripped the spare switch down and cleaned that up too.

Well, the evening hadn't been wasted in the garage as refitting the switch showed the side lights as now working perfectly. The headlights worked as well, so that's another small job crossed off the MOT list.

While in a positive frame of mind I turned my attention to the dimmer switch which I suspected was the reason the dashboard lights weren't working. I did think about stripping this down too, but to be honest I never use the one on Gertie, so I couldn't see the point. The dashboard lights are not exactly blinding on Triumphs, so I decided to just bypass the switch altogether. This was also a success and the car now has dashboard lights too. :)