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"Le Weekend" - marooned in Calais!!


betsy

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Here we sit, broken hearted.............

On Thursday 28th my wife and I set off from home in deepest Dorset to begin our annual jaunt down to Portugal (picking up pals in Salamanca). Great!

After a brief comfort stop near Southampton, I noticed the battery (ignition) light on the dash of our 2006 Ducato took its time to go out. Considered delaying out trip but the crossing from Dover was booked etc, so thought we would go ahead and get things looked at here in France.

Next morning (Friday) in Calais light went out imediately (as it had done a couple of times the evening before) so drove to Auchan to fill up with fuel and do some shopping. After that stop the light stayed on permanently! I also noticed that the engine idling had increased by about 200 rpm (still steady though). After some searching, found a local Fiat Agent (BOM services - mostly haevy trucks etc) and their initial diagnosis was a possible failed diode on the alternator. They couldnt fit us in that afternoon but rang around 7 other garages - all of whom could not help. They have been very helpful.

Result: we are now sitting inside the 'van in BOM's yard (they hooked us up to their mains, gave us their wifi code AND a key for the main gate(!)) to await a proper examination on Monday morning which, if parts are required, will probably mean waiting until Tuesday to have them supplied and fitted. Such is life!

Have been trawling the internet to see if I could find if anyone else had suffered the same problem that we have. The alternator drive belt is taught and the pully plainly turns okay. Does anyone have any thoughts? Is there a fuse/relay etc that could have gone wrong?

Cheers

PS Its Brass Monkey weather here too!!

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Hi Betsy

Sorry about your dilemma

We have a 2006 Ducato 2.3. One question I ask, have you ever replaced the Cam Belt? Don't know how many miles you have done. we have about 33, 000 on ours (We average about 5000 mls a year )My OH changed the belt about two years ago, not because it had broken, but as a safetey measure, as we only use van abroad.

Hope you get sorted on Monday

PJay

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PJay - 2013-03-02 2:51 PM

 

Hi Betsy

Sorry about your dilemma

We have a 2006 Ducato 2.3. One question I ask, have you ever replaced the Cam Belt? Don't know how many miles you have done. we have about 33, 000 on ours (We average about 5000 mls a year )My OH changed the belt about two years ago, not because it had broken, but as a safetey measure, as we only use van abroad.

Hope you get sorted on Monday

PJay

 

If the van is driveable it wont be the cam belt. The red light indicates an electrical fault most probably the alternator.

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hi we had this on our ducato , its normally the earth strap which comes from the car body to the gearbox , on the right hand side as you stand in front of the van , a braided metal strap about 25mm wide ,simply remove the 13mm nut and clean up with sandpaper , had this on three of my ducatos and a peugeot boxer , probaly fixed by now , but may help someone .
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The other regular, and cheap-to-fix possible culprit is the actual clamp-on connections to the battery.

 

If they are not tightly clamped on, with good, clean metal-to-metal contact, you can often get a red light " battery not charging" ignition light coming on on the dashboard after you've cranked the engine to start it.

 

I've had this a few times over the years.

In fact I had it again on our current MH only a couple of months ago, after the chimp-pretending-to-be-a-mechanic had changed the engine battery from my old MH to newer MH as part of the part-exchange deal.

 

It's often worth taking the connections off, and using some emery/sandpaper on connections and terminals, then re-attaching them and clamping them back up tight, to see if the "problem red light" goes away.....before paying a garage to investigate other possible causes.

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  • 4 weeks later...
BrianBW - 2013-04-04 11:54 PM

 

The earth straps corode and won't pass the current causing electrical problems. Halfords have many types on the shelf. Should be replaced every 4 years.

 

Never heard of this one? Who says to replace every 4 years please?

 

Unless there is severe corrosion of the terminals surely just a regular check and clean up is all that is needed.

 

Personally I prefer a proper copper starter or welding lead to these corrosion prone braided straps.

 

I did once 'tin' a rusted terminal with solder taking great care to remove all traces of the highly corrosive flux afterwards and that cured the rust.

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BrianBW - 2013-04-05 12:54 AM

 

The earth straps corode and won't pass the current causing electrical problems. Halfords have many types on the shelf. Should be replaced every 4 years.

 

 

 

Every four years? Really?

I've never ever heard of that.

 

 

Surely, only replace if you need to.

 

If you are seriously that worried, just add a second engine-to-chassis earth strap if you want to.

 

 

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Garyo - 2013-03-09 8:44 PM

 

hi we had this on our ducato , its normally the earth strap which comes from the car body to the gearbox , on the right hand side as you stand in front of the van , a braided metal strap about 25mm wide ,simply remove the 13mm nut and clean up with sandpaper , had this on three of my ducatos and a peugeot boxer , probaly fixed by now , but may help someone .

 

This is exactly what the Green Flag guy did for us recently. No problem since and starting sweet as a nut.

 

John

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Its easy to be wise after the event.

 

This is someone who has experienced "Le Weekend" after breaking down south of Tours and being towed back to Le Mans, yes Le Mans! whilst they sorted out an alternator that had boiled the engine battery due to a failed diode, which would have cost pennies, but Fiat can be relied upon to fit cheap electrical components. The cost of a new battery and alternator was huge compared to the UK.

 

Me? I would never travel to France expecting to get a problem on my van sorted, especially at "Le Weekend"

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  • 2 months later...

ok, Guys you wont find it in the handbooks, its just my experience. The braid relies on each piece of wire contacting each other. After 4 years, in my experience, the braid wires are coroded and don't make contact to each other, causing a resistance. Half an ohm holds back a lot of current. So I change the earth braiding.

Actually from my previous job I acumulated very heavy coax cable. I remove the innards and the outer coax is ideal for earth braiding.

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BrianBW - 2013-06-14 6:38 PM

 

ok, Guys you wont find it in the handbooks, its just my experience. The braid relies on each piece of wire contacting each other. After 4 years, in my experience, the braid wires are coroded and don't make contact to each other, causing a resistance. Half an ohm holds back a lot of current. So I change the earth braiding.

Actually from my previous job I acumulated very heavy coax cable. I remove the innards and the outer coax is ideal for earth braiding.

 

 

Hi Brian - I don't think the braid "relies upon each piece of wire contacting each other".

 

To pass the current all it needs is for some of the pieces to be in good contact with each other, not all of them.

The braid would have to be very, very, VERY corroded, across an entire internal and external portion of its width, to give any sort of meaningful increase in resistance.

The action of the engine running, and thus passing vibration along the braid to the chassis, will surely help to keep most of the strands contacts with each other "clean", by friction between them due to that vibration movement.

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Oh dear, how come my 70K 15 year old VW Lt just managed a months 2.300 mile trip to France and Spain and almost certainly on its original earth strap without me getting the tool box out?.

 

Problems with earth straps continuity can occur from a number of causes: bad bolted connections, strand breakage due work hardening of the copper (usually due poor installation with wrong length strap) or corrosion.

 

There would have to be a significant number of broken strands before contact between individual strands becomes critical to continuity.

 

4 year replacement = Nice little earner. (Cynicism only exceeeded by experience)

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Hello All,

Was a littel surprised to see my original post back up and being added to.

Under the circumstances it might be helpful to others if I set out what transpired. Le Weekend ended up being a very, very long one. About mid-day on the Monday (after a bitterly cold Friday pm and Saturday and Sunday spent in the Fiat agents (BOM) yard) the mechanics took our van (with us inside) into their workshop removed the alternator. After a bit the foreman came out and invited me into the office where he showed me, on the computer, the various alternator replacement options. He was very apologetic about the prices explaining that spare parts were very expensive in France - he wasnt kidding! If I recall correctly, a new original replacement was OVER 650 Euros and a rebuilt one 450!

In the end I opted for a rebuilt one which, wait for it, could not be delivered until the next morning (Tuesday). At this point let me say that throughout the whole exercise the garage staff were most polite, helpful and I never once felt that we were being taken for a ride. They were very busy with pre-booked work and were fitting us in as best they could.

Just before climbing back into the 'van, I took a note of our alternator serial number and that night sent off a couple of e-mails to UK suppliers to see what a replacement would cost in the UK. Next morning the answer was there - about 130 quid (an orginal unit, outright - no exchange - on my particular model) delivered to Calais the next day!

On the Tuesday morning our French replacement unit arrived, was subsequently fitted and the mechanic then asked me to start the engine. It started, no problems......but the red light stayed on!

Much scratching of heads and a few 'phone calls by the foreman who then came over to tell me that they would be putting by old alternator back on and getting a mechanic from the Fiat agent in Boulogne over with another computer. When the mechanic arrived early in the afternoon he plugged in and then put his head under the bonnet for a few minutes before asking me to start the engine. I did and the red light went out!

Petite problem, loose earth connection. Sorted, basically, by half a turn on a spanner!! Yes, the Boulogne mechanic had come across the problem before.

Of course I was obliged to pay for labour and the return of a unused but fitted alternator - not what I'd call cheap but I was very happy.

 

LESSONS LEARNED:

(a) I am a classic car buff and had it have been an old car I would have sorted it out very quickly. I am, however, wary of modern vehicles and their computers so I thought that I'd leave it to the experts. Wrong, next time I will run all the basic checks before calling them in; and,

 

(b) Spare parts in France are generally more expensive and I would advise anyone who needs an expensive replacement for their motorhome to research costs (over the internet) in the UK before they commit themselves to a French unit. It could save a lot of dosh.

 

Yes, I would use BOM's services again.

 

The area around BOM's yard is heavily used by HGVs and there restaurants etc. Threre is even a fairly big supermarket (selling everything but concentrating mostly on wine/beer etc). EVERYTHING is open 7 days a week on a 24hr basis.

 

The rest of our trip was wet! Never had such poor weather in Portugal - at least it was warm rain..............

 

 

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Betsy,

 

I am pleased that you have gotten it sorted now and apologise for not seeing this thread as something that I could help with at the time. This is a common problem and I have posted about it several times.

 

The earth straps on these vehicles is inadequate to begin with and deteriorates quite quickly. We have 2011 registered vans that needed attention before they were a year old or had covered 40,000 miles.

 

I (once again) strongly urge ALL X250 owners to get an ADDITIONAL earth strap made out of welding wire and with sturdy crimped connections fitted from the original chassis fixing point to the end cover of the gearbox.

 

There are a number of faults that come to light because of the poor earth and they include the above battery light warning with increased idle speed. Other random warnings are common too and all miraculously disappear once the earth lead is changed or duplicated.

 

Nick

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Hi Nick

could you please expand/explain some of this please

i would want to fit an earth strap,but firstly, i cannot find where the original strap is fitted... *-) could you point me in the right direction to look? cant i just fit it to the chassis which is painted thro a bolt hole? how does it earth from the end of the gearbox which is alloy? and do i fix it thro the gearbox bolts (hex heads) or the end plate which are just scews with a phillips head?

i'm abit thick when it comes to electrics *-) :$

jon

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Guest pelmetman
euroserv - 2013-07-02 6:26 PM

 

The earth straps on these vehicles is inadequate to begin with and deteriorates quite quickly. We have 2011 registered vans that needed attention before they were a year old or had covered 40,000 miles.

 

I (once again) strongly urge ALL X250 owners to get an ADDITIONAL earth strap made out of welding wire and with sturdy crimped connections fitted from the original chassis fixing point to the end cover of the gearbox.

 

There are a number of faults that come to light because of the poor earth and they include the above battery light warning with increased idle speed. Other random warnings are common too and all miraculously disappear once the earth lead is changed or duplicated.

 

Nick

 

Progress eh? :D

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silverback - 2013-07-03 9:17 PM

 

Hi Nick

could you please expand/explain some of this please

i would want to fit an earth strap,but firstly, i cannot find where the original strap is fitted... *-) could you point me in the right direction to look? cant i just fit it to the chassis which is painted thro a bolt hole? how does it earth from the end of the gearbox which is alloy? and do i fix it thro the gearbox bolts (hex heads) or the end plate which are just scews with a phillips head?

i'm abit thick when it comes to electrics *-) :$

jon

 

 

Guys -

 

I think this is getting a bit unfair....................Nick has yet again very kindly already taken the time and trouble to help people here, by explaining how to fit an extra earth strap between engine block and chassis.

 

This really is basic mechanic stuff chaps.

 

If there's anyone who really doesn't grasp technically what he's said, then really I don't think they shouldn't be opening a tool box or laying hands on their motorhome engine bay at all unless there's a competent techie helping/showing them; they should maybe just print off and take his explanation to any competent garage/mechanic, and get them to fit an additional strap.

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Thanks Nick. I forgot to mention that I also had increased revs at tickover . My vehicle is a 2006 A class Rapido. Since having the earth connection re tightened there has been no problem. Sorry we were not in touch earlier.

To other readers, the info on checking the UK price of replacement parts before buying inFrance is still money saving advice.

Cheers

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silverback - 2013-07-03 8:17 PM

 

Hi Nick

could you please expand/explain some of this please

i would want to fit an earth strap,but firstly, i cannot find where the original strap is fitted... *-) could you point me in the right direction to look? cant i just fit it to the chassis which is painted thro a bolt hole? how does it earth from the end of the gearbox which is alloy? and do i fix it thro the gearbox bolts (hex heads) or the end plate which are just scews with a phillips head?

i'm abit thick when it comes to electrics *-) :$

jon

 

Jon,

 

The original strap is between the chassis inner rail and the top of the gearbox. You are quite right in that the box is ally and I completely agree that this is worse than stupid design but it sort of works. The additional strap that we (and dealers) fit should go between the original chassis point and be secured under one of the screws for the gearbox end cover because the cover is steel and you will get a more secure fixing.

 

BGD is right; I did not design these vehicles and would have done many things differently but if you want to know how we get around some of the problems and implement some of our fixes the feel free to do so if you have the knowledge and expertise to do so.

 

Nick

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Many THANKS Nick

i was crawling underneath *-)

anyways ive found it and put a strap on to where you say, and what a bl**dy place to get at *-) i would have thought to put it to the engine block (cast) but i will go with you (and dealers) as your the experts :-D

so once again many thanks for taking your time to explain

 

 

BGD i'm sure you weren't insinuating about me being useless 8-) but to clear things up i have a HND in engineering (but not a mechanic) so i do know my way around a tool box B-) but if you take a look under the bonnet of these X2/50 everything is so bleeding tightly packed together its very hard to find what your looking for unless you know in what region to look at, they at not like the old jtd where there is more space B-) the earth strap is only 3" long and slightly obscurred, hence the seemingly stupid question, but i take your point about if people dont think they can manage working in the engine bay then get someone who is qualified

also if you read my post about the horn location....then you might understand where i was coming from...its covered in the wheel arch on the inner wing!! now how stupid is that *-)

jon

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