GRRRR Heading home after a particluary messed up 12 hour night shift, and scuba drove round the M25. Nice. Finally after 64 miles get within a mile of my house - hurrah! Well nearly... going through the back lanes I spy an abandoned Astra estate, in about 18" of flood water - no driver to be seen.
I jump back in the car, lucikly I'm going the opposite way at the T junction. So gingerly I go round the blind bend with "just" standing water... to the point where a sudden rush of water starts crossing the road, but I keep going to the point where it stalls about a metre from dry land. No joy. I crank it over a few times until my brains says "I know its bedtime but stop cranking a diesel engine in a flood..... BALLS".
Now I get out the water is touching the rear bumper, ruin my favourite shoes, roll my trousers upto my knee and open the tailgate while I still can (to get towing eye and towing strap) I wander to the deepest part, the water is now 18" where I am, the Astra is now to the tops of its wheels! You can really feel the resistance of the running water now.
At this point I swore a lot. Rather a lot actually
Then the Astra owner turns up (in wellies) with her other half, she's a Vet on a call out, and is rather suprised at how deep her car is, bearing in mind it looked like mine 15 minutes ago. I was panicing a little now, so got the old man out of bed (the wifes Kia isn't going to tow HMS Vectra) with the Zafira. As he turns up (and in true Dad form calls me all sorts ) the RAC have arrived for the Astra, and reluctantly (with my tow strap!) they drag me out the way to get to the Astra. So out of the water I give it one crank - no chance, so we decide to drag it home in neutrel (it is an automatic) at about 15 MPH... faced with a 4 metre wide back lane or a lunched box, I figure I'm knackered either way....
So back home about 9am (I left work at 06:30) we have a look - the ignition lights up without warning lights, its doesn't seem to be ****ing oil or transmission fluid, and nothing looks/smells burnt.
Hydraulic lock? Pfft... I'm a man I have to give it one last crank still nowt, just a dead solenoid type flat battery sound. So I rung my shoes out and went to bed! Now I'm back at work again 12 hours later and it is time for investigations - any pointers?
My plan is to have the airbox apart first, see what the story is, if that looks o.k. have the bumper off and solvent clean any electrics and give it all an air - are there ECU's in there??? Put the electrics back together, check the fuses. I suppose glow plugs out next, and crank it over? Then I will know if its time to ring the insurance company.....
I really loved those shoes too.
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