My van has a back-up beeper. Well, it used to have a back-up beeper, we'll get to that. Anyway it was the rather familiar type that made a high pitched intermittent tone, to warn any nearby pedestrians that they were about to get run over by someone who can't see them.
It's mounted in the rear of the vehicle, under the cargo area between the spare tire and the rear bumper.
Removing it only involves unscrewing one 10mm nut, cutting one zip-tie, and struggling with separating the electrical connector for a good 7 to 8 minutes or so.
Now, why would I want to remove it? Well, if you'll recall, this should be making a familiar beep-beep noise. Instead, it was sounding more like this.
Which is not exactly what it's supposed to sound like. It was clear that this beeper was not long for this world.
Rather than going with a classic beeper, though, I figured I'd get on the band wagon of the newer white noise beepers, which are designed so that the sound doesn't carry nearly as far, and isn't as intrusive, despite still being plainly audible up close.
Ironically it doesn't sound all that different from the one I just removed.
But the important difference is that this one is supposed to sound like this, and isn't just on its last, pitiful legs about to keel over and die.
Speaking of keeling over and dying, it's time to cut off the life support from the old beeper so I can reuse the connector. The new beeper uses terminal studs rather than integrated wires, so a set of ring terminals gets crimped on.
Then after applying a bit of appropriately coloured heat shrink, they get bolted into place.
And the whole assembly gets installed back under the van.
And assuming I tightened the nut down sufficiently, it hopefully won't just come loose and go tumbling down the road after I hit the first pothole. I guess we'll see.
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