Warning lights that tell porkies
With the windscreen and suspension sorted as detailed in previous issues, the erratic warning lights on Lancaster Insurance’s Escort XR3i were the next item to get on our nerves enough to move them to the top of the list of jobs to be done.
Ever since we’d called in the professionals to restore forward vision on the XR3i courtesy of a new screen, the Escort had been sitting unused and locked away in our company car park. I made arrangements to meet up there with Kelsey Chief Operating Officer Phil Weeden and collect the remaining project cars. We flipped a coin to choose cars and I’m still unsure which of us won in the end, but I ended up with the keys to our Honda CRX while Phil drove off in the XR3i. Or at least he would have done had the battery had sufficient juice. We’d needed to jump start the car a couple of times after it had been standing for a while, but now it seemed as if the battery had finally reached the end of the road, refusing to hold any useful charge.
As ever though, the local Euro Car Parts had an offer running, so we whipped
“Those erratic warning lights have a habit of flickering randomly”
round in the Honda to click and collect a battery. Although this was apparently the correct unit for the car, it was noticeably smaller than the one we had removed. Fortunately, hunting around the deserted office soon turned up a suitable 13mm bolt to hold it safely in place. With that done, the XR3i fired up happily and as we convoyed south, I was struck by how the Mk3 Escort stands out on the road in a sea of modern cars.
And so to what has always been a minor niggle in the form of those erratic warning lights which have a habit of flickering randomly while driving. The low fuel and handbrake warning lights we can live with, but the oil pressure and brake fluid were more of a concern. When we first got the car, they worried us enough to pull over and check brake fluid, oil and water, but we’ve now come to realise the problem is in fact electrical.
Chatting to other Mk3 Escort owners made me remember how often electrical issues on Fords of this era are down to dodgy earths, and with this in mind we decided to start at the dashboard to inspect the connections to the instrument panel itself. Removal is a simple business needing nothing more than a couple of screwdrivers and since cleaning up the contacts it seems as if we’ve sorted the problem – at least for now, anyway.