A few small ferret problems.Can anyone help.

[Lord Burley]

I took the Ferret to the Biggin Hill Airshow yesterday.On returning home there was a bit of a delay in leaving.Stop/start traffic and things were a bit of a crawl.Once out on to the open road,gave it some throttle,and at the same time put the head lights on.As soon as i did it started to splutter and was coming to a halt.Switched the lights off and it picked up again and off i went.It didnt do it anymore on the way home.Now my intial thoughts were that it was a bit of fuel startvation as i was sitting in traffic for a while and it was a very hot day or do i have some sort of electrical problem?Or is it fuel starvation but just a coincidence that it happened when i put the lights on? Also ive noticed that my brake lights have become permantley stuck on.And will only go off when the ignition is switched off.?Any ideas.One last problem is the hazard lights.They only work on the right side and not the left.Yet the indicators work both sides? Any help will be much appreciated. Mark

[fv1609]

Mark, when you put your lights on did they light up to normal brilliance or were they dim? If you had some sort of shorting out of the lighting, then you would have reduced voltage for the ignition. In addition the drain on the system would mean an incresed torque on the generator, so there would be more work for the engine to turn at a time when it had a reduced HT.

 

When lacking the rmmh rmmh did you try switching to the other tank in case there was a semi blockage.

[Lord Burley]

I couldnt tell it was daylight.I put the lights on so other people can see me.You wouldnt believe the amount of people that head towards you going along the road.It started up fine before i made off with a strong turnover.And i never had anymore problems on the way home.When i did get home i tried the lights again and it was fine.

[sirhc]

Mark,

 

It sounds like you need a new brake pressure switch. This fits into the system just behind the master cylinder. They are a common commercial item so you should be able to find one.

 

Chris

[Lord Burley]

Sorry but without sounding a complete idiot where is the brake master located.I havent got my manual with me at the moment.

[sirhc]

Mark,

It's on the side of the hull just above your right leg. Follow the linkage from the pedal!

 

Chris

[AlienFTM]

Two things cross my mind but. Probably not relevant but I'll pass them on for you to file away just in case.

 

1. In Cyprus, probably very early 77, we were patrolling the western end of the Green Line in the DANCON (Danish Contingent) sector when my Ferret suffered a nasty little electrical problem outside one of the Danish OPs. Wouldn't start (didn't seem to be producing full volts to the starter motor). Because we were on a hilltop, we were able to bump start it by rolling it down the hill (but I had to be careful because the track was marked as minefield either side).

 

We got back to our base in Skouriotissa and let our attached REME VMA loose with it. He phoned the LAD back at Force Reserve Squadron base in Nicosia; they recommended a new starter motor and if he started removing the current one now (anyone will tell you that replacing a Ferret starter motor without a pack lift is a BIG job), the replacement they were sending down would be with them long before he'd undone the three bolts through the belly plate. (ISTR this was a 2/4, whereas most of the squadron were 2/3s, and the belly plates were smaller on these rearmoured earlier Mark 2s.)

 

Six hours later the starter motor was out and we set about the six-hour reverse procedure. Didn't fix it. That evening Troop Leader (my commander) had an invite to the Officers Mess, so we push started it, trogged across the mountains and let the LAD play with it while I overnighted in Nicosia. Next morning it was all fixed. One of the batteries was dead because I had hit a rock and the battery securing rods had come undone and shorted it against the battery box. Drove back over the mountains to Skouriotissa and all was well.

 

2. 1980, Ex Spearpoint aka Crusader. 15/19H (and the whole of 3 Armd Div) were umpires. Command Troop umpired 4 Armd Div's HQ Task Force Hotel. For the only time in my career, I got to carry out the task for which I and my vehicle were intended. The exercise has spread somewhat and there was some distance between us and HQ TFH, so I got sent to a good radio location somewhere halfway between the two, frigged the two UK/VRC353s and announced, "Hello all stations this is Four Hotel Six. This is an automatic rebroadcast net. Out"

 

I had magicked each of the two halves of the net to relay through me to the other half. With the two sets receiving a signal on the one set on one frequency, the harness would trigger a transmit on the other set to rebroadcast it on the other frequency to the other half of the net. The process was pretty much transparent to all users except that having heard my notification that this was a rebroadcast net, they had to remember to exaggerate the PAUSE in PRESS, PAUSE and SPEAK while my Clansman harness triggered all the responses in the two sets. I pulled a paperback out of my map pocket and settled down for the duration. Since we were umpires, I didn't have to deploy my driver on foot patrol. We didn't even have to cam up or site ourselves tactically: I just stopped us on a track in the middle of a field.

 

(Luckily in BAOR, just about all Command Nets were VHF. Rebroadcasting HF would have required that every call be repeated so that, during the first call, I could work out which set was receiving and set the other set to send, before the call was repeated, parties on the other net then heard the repeat call and the message. Then when a reply came, I'd have had to reverse the rebroadcast. Not nice. Luckily HF works over longer distances anyway and by this time HF was revserved for Logistic and Guard nets.)

 

The new Clansman sets had automatic squelch which reduced the amount of noise on top of the voice signal, but frankly it was rather too sensitive to be used in a rebroadcast, because any burst of static would trigger the squelch in the receiving set and initiate a rebroadcast through the other set. When that set stopped transmitting at the end of message, it would then finish with a burst of static in the opposite direction and the whole net could quickly descend into chaos as the two local sets chattered away to each other with nobody else getting a word in. With Larkspur SR/C42s, we'd simply have manually turned down the squelch, slightly reducing the signal element but entirely eliminating the noise. Noise was inherent on HF sets: there was no squelch circuit. This is why rebroadcasting HF had to be done manually.

 

As the batteries ran down, Clansman squelch would get increasingly sensitive and kick off the chatter. This was a good indicator that the driver should start up the vehicle to recharge the batteries. (Didn't apply in a Command Vehicle because they were connected to 500W generators to keep the radio batteries charged. It was still a good idea to run the vehicle batteries at night, though to keep some heat in the engine and ensure there they remained topped up ready for First Light and a potential crash-out.

 

However on this particular occasion, when the squelch chatter started, horror of horrors, the Ferret wouldn't start. Turned out a fault in one of the electrical boxes in the brake circuit meant that the brake lights were permanently on and drawing 2*20W from the one set of batteries. I had to admit defeat on the air and terminate the rebro, but luckily the alternate ACV had just moved and assumed control and I'd have been closing the rebro anyway. ISTR we tried bump starting the Ferret down the slight incline like I had done previously in Cyprus but there wasn't enough slope (and there was only me to push it), so were just setting up for a crank start when the Troop Sergeant in Four Hotel Five happened to pass by and we were able to slave it.

 

Quick trip to a nearby MRG and we were sorted.