Last weekend I went on road-trip to pick up some stuff from a very nice chap near London. It was a couple of hours drive to get there from the sunlit uplands of the Midlands but before I tell you what I was picking up, let me regale you with my tale of woe from the day. That way, you can decide if it was worth the trip or not.
On the way down the motorway (M5) my clutch pedal started to stick down. Not all the way, but far enough that the normal clutch travel - biting point etc - was within an inch or so of movement just above the floor. Not great but driveable. I soon managed to hook my foot underneath the pedal and pull it back up into the normal position. Sometimes the clutch would be completely normal for a bit, sometimes it would immediately stick down again. Not a major issue on the motorway as I managed a healthy steady speed.
I reached the destination, did the pickup and then set off again. With about 60 miles to go to home, the clutch pedal went flat to the floor. And I mean FLAT. No chance of getting underneath it, no way to change gear. I had to pull over to the hard-shoulder and get my hand under the pedal to pull it back up. I had some minimal clutch control again and continued.
Then it happened again..
And again..
After struggling for an hour I made it to one of the busiest local roundabouts imaginable but only a few miles from home. I needed to keep moving as, by now, the clutch was down on the floor and the only way I could keep moving was to crash the gearstick from one gear to another (not first - no chance of getting it into first). On the approach to said roundabout I was saying the desperate motorists prayer, "Don't stop, don't f***ing stop." to the traffic in front of me. You can probably see where this is going.
I had to stop.
Car immediately stalled. Reach down and try to pull the clutch pedal up, no luck. Try to re-start the engine but it's in gear so won't start (it's a push button start). I flick the hazard lights on, into neutral, restart the engine and keep trying to get it into second while the engine in running but I couldn't take the handbrake off as I'd roll back into the cars behind me, and as soon as I engaged the gear with the handbrake on, the car stalled.
Many people stopped to check if I was OK. Several offered to help... No. Wait. Not one single person offered to help or even stopped. Not one. After the initial queue of annoyed motorists tutted and tooted their way past me there was a bit of a gap in the traffic and I managed to get the car started and, most importantly, moving.
Cue the last few miles with me being in third gear all the way, no gear changes and no stopping. Not a fun few miles. But I made it home in one piece with my pickup.
Was it worth it? Here's the list:
Amiga A2000 with unknown amount of memory and Buddha IDE card, 2 x floppy drives and CD-ROM drive
Amiga A1200 with 68030 25Mhz accelerator and 8 meg
Amiga A1200 with 68040 40Mhz accelerator and 32 meg (accelerator not working)
4 x Amiga mice (condition unknown)
Goliath power supply for the '040 A1200
Video digitiser
Colour splitter for the video digitiser
Cheetah Bug joystick
CD32 controller (original Commodore)
Misc disks and software
Hell, yeah it was worth it. :)
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| Multiple mice. All four now working. |
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| 68040 Card - not working...yet. |
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| A2000 Battery - Removed shortly after this was taken |
The 68040 accelerator was something I wanted to look at immediately. I had no idea what the RAM size was at this point (spoiler?). A quick examination of the board revealed some worrying burn marks on one side.
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| Burn, baby burn. |
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| It's not any prettier close up.. |
So I removed the capacitor to give me a clear run at cleaning this up. And it cleaned up fine. I was worried there'd be some serious damage to the board but, after a generous dose of IPA and several cotton buds, it looked almost new. Very, very strange. I replaced the capacitor with a new one (47uf at 16v is about the only surface mount cap value I have!) and continued inspecting the board.
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| Cleanup complete - cap removed |
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| New cap installed |
Battery. Gah. Battery begone.
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| No battery here (anymore). No battery damage either - phew! |
The only other thing I found was that one of the PLCC chips had ridden up slightly out of its socket. A careful push down and it clipped nicely back into its socket.
I decide at this point I should probably renew the thermal gunk holding the heatsinks onto the 68040 processor. These chips run hotter than the '020 and '030 and some cooling is absolutely required although it doesn't normally need to be too extreme.
Cleaning the processor was a bit of a pain but with IPA and a bit of elbow grease I got it looking almost new and ready for some new thermal tape (due to arrive tomorrow).
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| In need of a clean. |
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| That's better - ready for new thermal tape |
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| Heatsinks will be reused so they get the same cleaning treatment |
But I couldn't just leave it. I had to see if it would now work. After wrestling it into the A1200 with wooden feet (more on that next time) I tentatively switched it on with the heatsinks resting on top of the CPU and the fan resting on top of that. I wouldn't be keeping it on for long or doing anything strenuous, I just needed to see if it worked. A 40Mhz 68040 Amiga is a rare beast these days.
Did it work?
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| What's that? A 68040 you say? |
Oh, yes. :)
More Amiga next time.
