7th March 2012 - Side Lights U/S.

About a year ago I had the clutch replaced by a couple of mates. At the time I never questioned their quote of £40.00 plus the parts to do the job, but then again, who would at that price ?

A few months later and I had to call the RAC "very nice man" out to sort an issue whereby the side lights kept shorting out and blowing fuses. Initially and for quite some time the mechanic was baffled, before eventually discovering (no pun intended etc) that the reversing light on top of gearbox had not been reconnected. The two offending wires had chafed and were shorting out on top of gearbox. At the time (on side of the road) the said mechanic tucked them out of harms way as a short term fix to get me on my way.

A couple of months passed and she flew through the MOT.

A couple of weeks ago I had the same symptoms again, and i only then remembered that the reversing lights were still not working. Must have slipped through the net that is the MOT !

With no side lights I'm pretty limited, so decided to try and sort this myself. A few inquiries from the DOC Forum, and off i went:

First of all, remove the +ve terminal on the battery. Next prise out the gaiters and undo the gearknobs, followed by removing rubber mat. Next I prised out the electric window switch panel (leaving all wiring plugs connected) and also remove the handbrake gaiter from the console.

Removing the rubber mat reveals 2 x 7mm hex headed screws. A bit fiddly without the righ

t spanner or socket ! Mental note to add 7mm combi spanner or socket to my collection!

Lifting the "electric window switch panel" up and forwards reveals a Phillips head screw to remove.

And then there's 4 more Phillips headed screws holding the cubby box in place at the back.

All that's now preventing the console being lifted out is the handbrake.

In order to raise the handbrake to a vertical orientation to remove the console, you first have to remove this drilled pin and clevis pin. The clevis pin was straightened and used again when refitting later. This was a bit fiddly but not too bad.

With the above removed, the handbrake can be positioned like this, and the console lifted straight off the top, finally disconnecting the stereo when access is available.

With console removed, its pretty straightforward from now on. The pipes which feed warm air to the rear are simply pulled off. Exposed then is the thick grey sound deadening foam. This is in 2 pieces and just lifted out.

This exposes the top rubber seal. I expected this to be pop riveted in place, but the presence of hex headed self tappers tells me someone's been here before ! These are all removed and set aside. There are similar retaining rings around the gear stick, each held in with Phillips screws. Again, these are simply removed and set aside.

Finally the top rubber seal can be lifted away, which in turn gives easy access to the reversing light switch / offending wires. Getting to this stage took me an hour.

Time for a well earned cup of tea!

In true "Haynes" manual style, Refitting is a reversal of the removal procedure !

I did chuckle, but this time it was correct. Including my tea break this took about 2 hours to complete. All lights working as they should. However, for some reason stereo now not working!

Take care all.

TTFN