Not the best of things to happen.

[Konan555]

Just went to turn over the old V6 which has been haveing a rest pending new brakes since before christmas. General housekeeping. Top the tyres up (or general inflate the avon that insists on flattening itself constantly), let the engine come up to temp, roll the car up and down the drive etc etc.

The lights dim on the dash, the air pump slows down. Oh dear I think - maybe a slack belt? No..... next thing I know there's a good lot of smoke pumping out from under the dashboard and filling up the cabin. To say my heart skipped a beat is a bit of an understatment.

[Howard]

Electrical or mechanical toast?

[Konan555]

Electrical or mechanical toast?

Smelt like burning electrical insulation. Plus the lights dipped, so I'm pretty sure it's gonna be a short.

[Zad]

Erk! Let me know what it is, then I can check the wiring on mine

[Konan555]

Appeared to be an earth strap flapping about in the breeze. Poor workmanship when the engine was changed probably.

To my knowledge there's no 'common fault' that'd cause something like this, so I'd not worry too much Zad.

[Zad]

Phew. Easily done. The mechanic left the separate return strap off the quick-clear windscreen when they put my previous battery on, which gave all sorts of weird instrument faults when I tried to to a fast defrost on a morning!

[Konan555]

Nobody ever gets those right. One of the ford questions you hear asked all the time - 'Why is only half my window clearing?'

[5lab]

i have a stripe in my quickclear that doesnt work - any ideas?

[Konan555]

i have a stripe in my quickclear that doesnt work - any ideas?

Yep, the elements failed. No fixing it.

[5lab]

even though the stripe is ~5 elements wide?

[Konan555]

I'm not entirely sure on the internal construction of the quickclear screens past the fact they're split into left/right.

If you've not got an entire half a screen not working, it's unlikely to be anything you can rectify. Without a stone chip and insurance that covers windscreens.

[Zad]

Quickclear elements are bonded inside the glass I'm afraid, so you can't just get some silver loaded paint and re-do the connection. Sounds like a stone chip cracked through to the element layer. These screens are bonded in too so you couldn't really remove it and check the big power conductors.