Anyway, I decided to go to the flea-market for a mooch and decided to take the Prelude to give her a bit of a blast.
It’s funny but on the way there, (all motorway, about 30 or so minutes total time) I felt as though the engine was a bit sluggish, a bit down on power. As Linda was with me, she was whingeing about ‘not travelling too fast please’ and non-existent speed traps on ‘Waze’, so I didn’t really try to nail it, I just thought it was the cobwebs that needed blowing away.
Blah, blah, blah, after we’d finished mooching we came out and I started her up so that I could switch on the air-con to cool her down before her ladyship got in. I know I’ve told you this before, but it does take a while to cool her (the Prelude!) down, and as it was a bloody hot day, I thought it best to have a fag while I waited so it’d be comfortable for both Linda and I before we set off. Driving out of the car park I was in an exit queue and suddenly felt the engine splutter, like it was fighting for breath. Knocked it into Neutral and gave a her a couple of big revs and she seemed to calm down. Still in the queue, I felt the same thing but this time I could knock it out of Drive and she stalled. Bugger. Started her again and eased my way out of car park still not feeling that all was tickety-boo with the engine.
So we approach the slip lane to get on the motorway back home and we’re faced with miles of stationary traffic. Arrgghhhh. It’s the Lunar New Year holidays in the middle of February so it’s kind of like Christmas back in Blighty. Every bugger and wife are out shopping, therefore heavy bloody traffic everywhere.
So we’re in a jam, both a bit fed up and for some reason, the air-con wasn’t really cooling things down. So I turned the fan up to try and wring a bit more coldness out of the system. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted that the temperature had risen by another ‘block’ which I didn’t like the look of, as it’s never gone over the centre position before. So I’m looking at the gauge and suddenly it shows another ‘block’. Holy crap. So I’m fretting about the car, Linda’s fretting because she’s all hot and bothered, and we’re both fed up as we’re still stuck in the bloody traffic.
Then, another ‘block’ heaves into view. Okay, enough, action stations.
I switched off the air-con and just hoped something would happen. Luckily, we started moving, albeit slowly but at least some air was being pushed through the car. The gauge blocks fell away after two or three minutes and although I was still in a tizzy, I knew if we kept moving we’d be okay till we got home, switch off then I could call Jason on his one day off, and whine like a girl down the phone at the poor bugger.
As we were moving, I thought I’d try the air-con again and gingerly switched it back on. Damn, after a couple of minutes one block appears, then after another minute or so another bloody block appears. Right that’s it, no more air-con for this journey. Oh joy, a boiling hot car and no air-con.
Anyway, after a stop/start journey back we finally made it albeit pretty sweaty and distinctly damp in various bodily locations.
So yesterday, I went straight down to Jason’s place to give him the SP. He pretty much diagnosed it straight off the bat and when he switched on the engine, he pointed out that the air-con fan wasn’t turning, which obviously it should as soon as the air-con is switched on.
He phoned around and wangled a new fan assembly which he fitted and also topped up the coolant. He showed me the broken fan and pointed to the drive spindle which wasn’t fitting into the fan’s hole. The motor was spinning the shaft but the spindle wasn’t mating with the fan so it was going ten to the dozen, sometimes connecting and cooling but more often than not, not connecting and whizzing round doing nowt, till it eventually spun itself into an early grave.
All is well now and actually the engine is running much better. The air-con cools the car much more effectively and I’m a happy boy once more.
We both think this fan nonsense has been an intermittent problem for a while, but fingers crossed, it’s another little problem solved.
