We began to panic about the heater plugs. They had not arrived. I sent an email to the UK supplier. I walked back outside onto the terrace.
The postie had arrived and was yelling for us. Naturally the neighbours were yelling too. "Paquete, paquete," hollered half the street. Obviously a paquete was something rare and exciting.
Yes! It was our box of heater plugs. We dashed inside with them. Adrian was too excited so he was banished outside to wait for me to open them carefully. Apart from anything else if they didn't work, we wanted to send them back in the same packaging.
I carefully cut through the brown paper. Each layer of it. The double layers of sticky brown tape. Inside, underneath another two pieces of card as packaging, were six little boxes, surrounded by bubble wrap. Wow, were these plugs well wrapped.
Well packed
We took one out. Compared it with the broken one. Not only was it the same - it even included the ceramic. Four posts ago I wrote about looking for one in Spain and the robbin' bastards were going to charge us 35€ for one second-hand plug, with NO bits. No washers, no ceramic insulator and no top stud. We didn't ask for the washers but we did get the insulator and stud for a glorious price of just over £5 each incl postage. Or as a direct comparison, price for price, probably the equivalent of around 7€. NOT 35€.
New plug, complete with ceramic and knurled terminal nut, heater element carefully enclosed in a plastic tube
Perfect new heater element
We went outside to fit the new plug.
In
As we were too excited and it was nearly lunchtime, we decided to leave the big moment to start her for early in the morning the following day.
Once the sun was up and it was nice and warm out we went. Being methodical, I thought we would do a check. No, still no current according to the circuit tester. After messing around a bit more and cleaning up the terminals, we decided to go for it, especially as we suddenly noticed the light was coming on when we turned the key to choke position.
Oops, wait a minute. "What is that loose spring doing there?" I said, knocking it on the floor.
I knew it went somewhere
OK confession time. We did cheat. We did give her a little tiny whiff of EasyStart. We didn't want a flat battery and she had stood for two weeks. So off she went, burble burble. Up the track and across the river to the supermarket.
Today, fingers, toes and everything else crossed, we started her on her own. Burble burble she went. No addictive additive. Just our super heater plugs. Sorted. Thanks to the people on Land Rover UK Forums who gave us lots of advice and talked us through it.
And the postscript is........Adrian decided on a cycle ride today and when he was coming back through town, one of the lads at the auto-electrical garage stopped to ask him about the Land Rover.
Naturally he thought because Adrian was on the bike that it wasn't sorted. Wrong. "Non. Funciona," smiled Adrian. (No. It works.) And off he cycled leaving a dejected money-hungry Spanish auto-electrician in the middle of the road.
Finally a big thanks to P A Blanchard. Both Pete Blanchard and Nick were helpful. If you aren't sure about what you want, just ask them. We sent pictures of the heater plugs via email, and rang on Friday evening when everyone else would have gone home, and spoke to Pete.
We've never been able to fault Blanchard's and used them loads of times when we were in the UK whether over the 'phone or visiting in person. We have always recommended them and will continue to do so, and to use them.
Reliable as ever. Thanks Blanchies.
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