David, what's your phone number?  Maybe someday this will happen at a time
that I really could stop & call.

No time soon, I'm in Morocco at the moment, don't expect to be taking
Matilda much of anywhere before the end of January.

Next time I'm near the van, though, I shall take a photo and indicate which
light I mean.  It is indeed the one on the lower left that blinks for a
couple of seconds when you turn the key on, then stops.  Which I should
think is indeed the overheat/low coolant light.  I'm pretty sure that's the
only light that goes on when I turn the key on - but I could be all wrong
about that.

Joy

On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 10:25 PM, David Beierl <dbeierl@attglobal.net> wrote:

> At 05:00 PM 11/7/2010  +0000, Joy Hecht wrote:
>
>> Mine has mysteriously gone on and off for years.  Assuming we're talking
>> about the same light - the one that's at around "eight o'clock" on the
>> dial
>> with the tach.  The one that should come on for a second or two when you
>> turn the engine on, just to check that it's working, and then go off.
>>
>
> Joy, there are three lights, two in between the speedo and tach and one
> smack in the middle of the temp gauge.  On your 2.1l (Matilda *is* a 2.1l,
> right?), when you turn the key on you should see solid red on the left (ALT)
> light, blinking red on the right (OIL) light and blinking that stops after
> 2-3 seconds on the OVERHEAT/LOW COOLANT light.
>
> I think you're talking about the third one, yes?
>
> Wait until a time when the intermittent problem surfaces and talk to me --
> It's a simple system and we can solve its problem.  Seriously.
>
> Vis-a-vis the rest of your tale -- on both those occasions the lights did
> exactly what they were supposed to.  The buzzer was from low oil pressure.
>
> Just because it needs to be said as often as possible -- any of those three
> lights lighting on the road should be a "stop Right Now and diagnose before
> proceeding" warning.  These aluminum engines do not suffer overheating
> gladly -- and if the ALT light goes, there's a fair chance it's a broken
> belt, in which case you have no cooling.
>
> Yours,
> David
>