Alternator's... And Auto Electricians...

My first breakdown...
I have a 120 litre 3-way fridge. It had been running on LPG.
I decided that as I only have 2 x 9kg LPG bottles that last about 20 days each...
And in the interest of being self sufficient and being able to get lost in the wilderness for weeks on end...
That I would switch the fridge onto the solar powered batteries...
At the moment I have 2 x 85watt panels on the roof feeding into 2 x 220 amp hour house batteries.
There is a meter inside that tells me how many amp hours are going into the batteries and what their level of charge is...
So everything was fine and life went merrily on...
Until Friday morning I decided to put some music on in the CD player that runs off the starter motor.
Funny...
It wouldn't go.
So I tried the CB radio which sits on top of the CD player on the front dashboard...
It wouldn't go either.
So nothing for it...
Start the motor...
But...
It wouldn't go either.
Oh dear! What now!
Call the AA Breakdown...
It's a good thing I have recently upgraded my membership to 'Motorhome Plus' which means they will come out to a vehicle as big as mine and tow me to a garage if needed.
So a mechanic duly arrived and isolated the problem...
The fridge is connected to the starter batteries, not the solar powered house batteries.
So it had drained the batteries while I have been parked.
This exposed another much older problem...
The alternator wasn't charging the batteries from the motor when it was running.
But...
Said the mechanic...
This is a job for an Auto Electrician...
Here's a name and number...
Give him a call.

This Auto El had his head under another vehicle somewhere else but would give me a call if he was free before next week.
A couple of hours later I got a call, his next job had been cancelled and he was on his way to me.

What a wonderful 'find' this man turned out to be...
A real 'old timer' who had grown up with these old motors and knew exactly what to do and what screws and bits needed to be taken out and fixed.
He made sense of the jumble of wires attached to the batteries.
I have an Isuzu 6BD1 motor, athough it's new to this vehicle 10 years ago, he told me it's a motor from the early 1990's.
The most reasurring thing was that he can fix the alternator, it needs new brushes.
He also took the batteries away to charge them.
When he brings it all back on Tuesday I will be up and running again.
We agreed that Uretiti DoC beach camp is a great place to be broken down and stranded. I wasn't planning on going anywhere for a couple of weeks anyway.
You can see how in these old Bedford's the motor is accessed - not the easiest thing. The engine cover is lifted off, the motor and grass below is exposed and in the recesses is the alternator.
The amazing thing about this man is that he can also fix the fuel tank guage which isn't working.
He told me where to go to get the Speedo re-calibrated - that isn't working either!
He is going to look at the wiring for the fridge and when I get a big roof rack made with more solar panels on one side and room for my kayak on the other side, he is going to wire in the panels and re-wire the fridge...
So my desire to be self sufficient for a long time will come to pass.
He is also going to wire in a reversing camera for me...
So in another month when all these things have happened...