Tuesday, October 22, 2002
Kam’s Column - 22/10/02
Hello Again!
It’s Dr Raj in the hot seat this week – as you’ll remember out esteemed Dr Kev is in the biggest of big Apples, New York (which he assures me is his kinda’ town!). He did voice some concerns to me before he went about the spate of sniper shootings that are currently sweeping around the Eastern seaboard (that’s the coast to you and I), but his friends told him that he’d be quite safe. I’m sure we’ll get all in the inside stories when he returns (and inside is just where most Americans are staying right now…).
As you’ll no doubt be aware, Derby and Forest drew 0-0. It was quite an exciting match and has restored my flagging hopes for the fortunes of our great team. At least it wasn’t another loss!
We had an interesting case come in on Monday. Mr Leon Jenkins (name changed to protect his innocence!) brought his Toyota Sera into the workshop with a problem that had baffled other garages. For those of you not familiar with the Toyota Sera, here’s a brief description: it’s about the size of a Nissan 100, quite low to the ground and it has an unbelievable amount of glass in the doors and the roof. However, the best feature is the door mechanism – think Lamborghini scissor doors and you aren’t too far wrong!
The main problem with the Seras is that they are only in this country via import – they were only ever intended for the Japanese market and so parts are extremely hard to find, as would become evident shortly!
Leon’s Sera was suffering from a most unnerving problem – the ABS either wasn’t working or would trigger itself at the lightest touch of the brake pedal! You can imagine what that must have been like as he drove down the street… Anyway, he had taken it to three or four other garages, but with no success. Each time the car seemed better for a day and then the problem reoccurred. So it was over to Kam…
Once we had the car up on the ramps, it was evident just how much money Leon had put into getting the problem sorted. The car had new brake pads, new callipers, new discs – basically the whole braking system had been renewed. What’s more, the other garages had fitted everything perfectly and used good quality materials – so I couldn’t even criticise them for substandard jobs!
The next step was obviously to inspect the ABS unit itself and again, this was brand new (which must have cost a bit!). Even the wiring held up to close inspection – sometimes if a wire is slightly corroded then it will send strange signals to the ABS ‘brain’ and cause the ABS to mis-fire. By this point, I was beaten I have to confess, and even when I called some of the boys over to have a look no new ideas were forthcoming.
Suddenly Scott, who was over in Heanor for the day, had a brainwave.
“Raj, there’s a tiny relay between the brake pedal and the ABS unit – I wonder if that could be broken? I’ve only seen it happen once before and that was on an imported FTO [that’s a Mitsubishi], maybe it has happened here?”
Well, it was an idea and something is always better than nothing! So it fell to me to dive back into the engine bay to trace all of the wires, tubes and pipes that constituted the braking system. After a few minutes, I had what I thought was the offending relay. Marking its position with a small scrap of masking tape, I disconnected it for closer inspection.
As with many Japanese car parts, this was obviously designed to be the tiniest thing imaginable and it was impossible to tell by eye whether it was faulty or not. However, Scott’s electrical tool kit came to the rescue and, once we’d hooked it up to a very low current we’d found our problem! The relay was sticking every so often, either not coming on at all or remaining totally stuck! I let Leon know the good news and then it was onto the Internet to search for the part. Naturally, this relay is specific to the Sera so I couldn’t swap one in from a different model… Still, when the new relay arrived, it was indeed the right one and the braking system went back to perfect condition.
It’s important to have your brakes in tip-top condition, especially at this time of year. A friend of mine spun his car the other day because he couldn’t slow up quick enough on his work discs. Come into Kam and we’ll strip your whole brake system down and check it for you – and tell the guys that Dr Raj sent you!
That’s it for this week. Dr Kev should be back in the hot seat for the next tale from the workshop, so until then, remember that no matter how weird or wonderful, Kam’s the place to go!
