Vehicles: Mechanism out of reach?

[Jericoshost]

I have a ‘generator’ and I’m trying to turn on the engine to produce power (Was able to with foot pedals so far)
But every time I try to turn it on by using controls it says the ‘Mechanism is out of reach’

What is the ‘Mechanism’? The engine, the controls, or is it something else?
I have fuel, the engine isn’t faulty, I have battery, the controls are only separated by 2 wires from the engine, the fuel tank is in the tile directly connected to the engine, the battery is under the engine…

What is out of reach and how do I fix it?

EDIT:So things just got stranger. I got on the foot pedals in the other room (A seat, foot pedals and a seatbelt because safety is paramount in the Cataclysm even on stationary bikes)
to charge the battery up, and the engine started up instead.

The pedals are waaay further away from the engine (about 10-15 wires away) AND they don’t have controls. What exactly is happening?

C=Controls .=Wire E=Engine T=fuel Tank d=door
Cd.E
. T
.
V
.
.
Pedals

^Is how it looks.
Everything in the generator is repaired to bright green status.

[psyxypher]

How are you able to generate power with Foot Pedals? I could never get it to work…
Yeah, I think the “Mechanism” is the controls.

[Jericoshost]

Attach the pedals, and attach alternators to the pedals. Make sure you have a battery connected.

Edit: Also the generator will keep saying not enough wheels but that is fine, just keep driving the pedals at high speed. It takes awhile and doesn’t make tons of power but it does work. Just expect a good couple of hours to charge up a decent amount of power.

[syler1983]

You are getting “Mechanism is out of reach” because the controls aren’t on the same tile with the foot pedals.
Try to disable the foot pedals:

1. Stay near the controls (but not on the same tile).
2. Press ‘^’ - a control vehicle key, select the controls.
3. Disable the foot pedals in the “Manual engine control” option (or something like that).

If it will not help, report as bug.

PS: Or just place foot pedals on the same tile with controls.

[Jericoshost]

Thanks it worked!
I guess it thought that I was trying to use the foot pedals each time.

Also got some solar panels recently so power should be less of a problem.

[kevin.granade]

The “mechanism” is the foot pedals, they also count as controls which is why you can operate the generator from there.