Completely wired

After a long sleep last night and another rather nice cup of half real-half decaf coffee at breakfast I was in the mood to get a few things done. I'd been putting off rummaging around in the guts of the torpedo's faulty wiring because it was so cold, but the snow melted last night and it was a few degrees warmer, so today was the day.

By about lunchtime I had successfully prised open the control console and was busy probing things with my multimeter. All the switches worked, and...hmm, they were all getting voltage. Strangely though, wherever I checked for the regulation 12V I seemed to get -12V. Eventually I twigged that the battery was actually connected the wrong way round. I must have got it wrong somehow last time. That meant another soldering job in which I also improved a couple of things, and then hey presto, I had headlamps and turn signals again! But somehow no indicator lamps for the turn signals. After more rooting around I discovered a broken wire, so I jury-rigged a solution and then I was in business. Hurrah! I still have to rebuild one of the front wheels and sort the brakes, but I will tackle that later.

For an encore I fixed the bum shifting on Mirabel's front derailleur. I had previously clamped it just few millimetres too low and it was now jamming on the middle chainring when I tried to shift to the big chainring. After an hour (long story) of faffing and swearing, I had worked out the correct position and now all the gears work beautifully again.

Then it was off to see Mum and Dad for tea, before the working week begins all over again.