Who said French Cars are expensive to fix?

Tuesday
Driving home in the Mi16, the indicators stopped working. Actually, that's not correct. The indicator stalk stopped working. No, even that's wrong. The indicator stalk sort of stopped working. The horn-button and headlights switch that are also part of the stalk were still working. The up-and-down-ed-ness of the stalk was no longer functional.

For some reason, while I was indicating, the magic smoke literally left the indicator stalk. Upon canceling indicating the stalk no-longer moved up or down but by lightly pressing it in the appropriate direction, the indicators themselves could be made to blink. With the stalk unable to move, maintaining indication was tricky, so I decided to see if I could replace the stalk.

At home, a quick removal of the top of the steering-column housing[0] revealed that it used Torx screws. I didn't, as of Wednesday, have any torx screwdrivers. Add those to the to-buy list. Seeing as I wasn't going to be able to satisfy my curiosity and remove the semi-broken stalk and it's associated box, I went to my trusty Haynes manual[1] which confirmed that removing the stalk was a simple process.

The problem now became how to replace the stalk for a not-obscene amount of money. Ordinarily I would have called the Peugeot Association of Canberra's mechanic[2] but I recalled that in the last PAC newsletter that he was overseas but contactable. Upon ringing him (mostly as his expense due to the way global-roaming works!) he directed me to European Auto Imports in Melbourne and advised that the part should be less than $150. This was excellent news because the corresponding part on my RX-7 retailed for upwards of $220.

Wednesday
I called EAI and, despite the dude on the phone's inability to spell Kraal or my street address (I think he was caffeine deficient at 9am) he agreed to ship the required part to Canberra.

Thursday
Part does not arrive. Hmm...

Friday
Part arrives at 8.30am. Part fitted at 8.45am. The most difficult aspect of the procedure was figuring out how to get the plugs out the back of the old unit. Sticking one's tongue out at the correct angle always helps. The new unit has a Jaeger stamp on several of it's faces where the old one had a different manufacturer's stamp. Possibly this is a French/English built car thing, though I'm pretty sure my 405 is French-built.

The unit was late because they had neglected to write part of the street address on the package.

It's now totally fixed. Job 2 is to disassemble the broken unit to see why the magic smoke escaped.

[0] Made easier by the fact that I have the lower half of the steering column housing permanently removed because it encroaches on the knee-room under the steering wheel something shocking.
[1] If I have to explain why I went to the manual second, you aren't geeky enough to understand.
[2] I cannot express how cool it is that the PAC has someone who is their "technical advisor".