It looks as though we may be heading off on Euro Trip 6 in around 10 days. Nothing is booked yet and the van hasn’t been used since September of 2016 but it was serviced as per the schedule in January.

First job is to motor-move the van from its storage location onto the drive for a thorough clean. It’s been a damp winter and the roof in particular has much algae on it – the van looks more than its 2 years of age and it takes all afternoon and the following morning to restore its pristine condition. I used various Hozelock brushes along with the soap sticks. Finally I sprayed the van with a solution containing “Bobby Dazzler” and all looks good.

Next item to investigate is the ATC (Alko Traction Control). Following a couple of threads on Caravan Talk, ours doesn’t appear to be working correctly, if at all. In particular, winding back a couple of years we were speaking with a couple at Bilbao discussing the ATC led and noted that their LED illuminated at connection whereas ours didn’t click into position until the engine had been started.

This was tracked down to a blown fuse on Pin 9 of the 13-pin electrics and a fantastic explanation from a CT (Caravan Talk) contributor about how in this situation, the ATC at engine-on would effectively gain it’s power from the leisure battery as the fridge signalling cable indicates engine-on.

Further work revealed that two fuses on the Towbar electrics has been swapped around at install and the 20a fuse was on the fridge signalling cable and the 5a fuse which blew, on the Pin 9 permanent supply. All now rectified.