Digit

Such excitement! A trip up to Erin Mae to clear up, clean out, winterise and fit the new tachometer! Until…

My fears about the wiring of the adaptor harness proved well-founded. The old 8-pin plug into the existing tachometer was pretty much as expected.

However, when I removed it and inserted it into the adaptor, the wires clearly did not match up correctly. In particular, the green sensor wire on the new tacho had nothing connecting to it at all. Where that wire is situated (bottom left), there is no corresponding wire from the alternator on the other side.

I emailed the tacho techie guy with a photo, and rang him again. He spent quite a long time being puzzled, and saying rude things about whoever had put it together – we agreed it had probably been after a hard night out. Until he spotted the item code on the harness in my photo, alongside the telltale initials "JCB", and realised that it was the wrong harness. The one I needed was item X11392, and they'd sold me an X11394. I know nothing about part numbers, but it was precisely something like this that I had suggested at the start, both to him and to the supplier. Ah well…

So it was another phone call to the supplier. The very nice bloke in sales expressed puzzlement – he didn't even know there was an alternative harness. He said he would ring the tacho techie guy and get back to me about "availability and pricing". As of a quarter to five I'm still waiting for the phone call. Perhaps he wrote the number down wrong – it's all too easy to mix up a digit.

We would wait for it to be sorted out, but unfortunately we have to go back south tomorrow – Thursday is the day when issues with my trebacular meshwork are to be addressed, courtesy of the NHS. So it looks as though winterisation will have to wait until the end of November, by which time I hope they will have found me an X11392 (or good instructions for modifying an X11394). I spent the day cleaning all the silicone sealant from where the control panel sits on its column (you know what that stuff is like!).

It seems such a pity that, when this job is finally completed, I shall have to put some more on to keep it snug and dry.