Car Kvetch (edit 2)
So I promised a few days ago to update the saga of the rolling art piece that is my car. Like so much art, there is a debate on it's ultimate value, it's use and whether after making continual investments in the upkeep one should bite the bullet and send it off to some other unsuspecting schmuck.
Being the type of person that doesn't easily give up on cars (but should) I am still dreaming of a long life with this beaut.*
Anyway back to the point, as I implied earlier this weekend and to quote Yeats,
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;"
Driving home on I-81, about half-way between Staunton (where I worked until Tuesday) and Harrisonburg (the nearest exit to our house) my lights dimmed, the battery light came on and the temperature started shooting upwards. Normally I'm not one to be easily discouraged by mere "warning" lights, this time however, I immediately knew what had happened - adios fan-alternator-water-pump belt. I quickly pulled over, turned the flashers on and went to work.
Not having a spare belt (doh!) I first tried to reroute the AC belt to turn the water pump and alternator. These belts should be the same length for exactly this purpose. They're not, and no amount of creative pulley rearranging would fix that. Sometime during this 20 minute excercise in futility and rising frustration (mind you it was pitch black out, I was using an adjustable wrench on some seriously seized bolts, tractor trailers were doing 75mph 5 feet away from me and I was holding a coin sized LED flashlight between my teeth - I was sure I wouldn't really have to fix the car because I would soon be a large red stain with an odd nearly indestructable light in the middle of it) a police officer pulled up. After a friendly chat about this not being the optimal place to park a "classic" (his word, not mine) we eventually gave up and he called a flat-bed for me. So an hour and a half later after loading up the car and concussing myself on the truck's door (I had quite a goose egg) and then asking the driver if he wouldn't mind a brief stop to pick up the pizza that I had ordered pre-Merc-meltdown - I arrived home.
Mind you that wasn't really the frustrating part....
The really frustrating part came the next day, Sunday, when I went out, bought a new belt and began the disassembly process. Now up until Sunday the week had been beautiful, mid-60s or low 70s, sunny - nice. On Sunday it was in the low 40s (or even high 30s) with a - and I am not kidding here - 40mph wind. I'm just now able to feel my fingers. The entire disassembly took soooooooooo long. There are 3 belts on a 76 Merc diesel, power steering, AC, and then the alt, water pump, fan belt last of all, and closest to the engine. So naturally all the others had to come off first.
I cut the AC belt because the AC is long gone, but the power steering took about 1.5 hours to get off after loosening the pump and wiggling my hand and the belt in a space that only a five year old could reasonably reach. I finally had to ask Tara to get the belt off while I pushed the power steering pump out of the way. The remainder of the time was spent trying to develop extra joints in order to twist bolts that had last been seen and twisted sometime in the early Precambrian and were located somewhere outside of our space-time reality. Oh yes, and then there was the matter of the horn I had to remove to make the envelope sized space to get my hand to the belt in the first place. I lost the bolt. So once I finally got everything back together there was about 10 minutes of shuffling through the grass to find the bolt and then another 5 while I tried to convince my numb fingers to start the bolt in the threads so I could use the ratchet.
I like to pride myself on being fairly mechanically adept. That was before I bought the diesel. Which is running fine now, thank you very much.
---------------------------------------------
* It should be noted that I still have dreams about taking the 77' BMW 320i I have fitting a fiberglass hood, trunklid, and fenders, stripping the interior, dropping about a grand on the engine and lighter/wider wheels and driving that for fun on summer days.... ...120hp goes a-long-way with 1800lbs..... but then again it's been on jack-stands for a year now and I've agreed to give it away to the original owner - so that's likely to remain a dream.
Being the type of person that doesn't easily give up on cars (but should) I am still dreaming of a long life with this beaut.*
Anyway back to the point, as I implied earlier this weekend and to quote Yeats,
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;"
Driving home on I-81, about half-way between Staunton (where I worked until Tuesday) and Harrisonburg (the nearest exit to our house) my lights dimmed, the battery light came on and the temperature started shooting upwards. Normally I'm not one to be easily discouraged by mere "warning" lights, this time however, I immediately knew what had happened - adios fan-alternator-water-pump belt. I quickly pulled over, turned the flashers on and went to work.
Not having a spare belt (doh!) I first tried to reroute the AC belt to turn the water pump and alternator. These belts should be the same length for exactly this purpose. They're not, and no amount of creative pulley rearranging would fix that. Sometime during this 20 minute excercise in futility and rising frustration (mind you it was pitch black out, I was using an adjustable wrench on some seriously seized bolts, tractor trailers were doing 75mph 5 feet away from me and I was holding a coin sized LED flashlight between my teeth - I was sure I wouldn't really have to fix the car because I would soon be a large red stain with an odd nearly indestructable light in the middle of it) a police officer pulled up. After a friendly chat about this not being the optimal place to park a "classic" (his word, not mine) we eventually gave up and he called a flat-bed for me. So an hour and a half later after loading up the car and concussing myself on the truck's door (I had quite a goose egg) and then asking the driver if he wouldn't mind a brief stop to pick up the pizza that I had ordered pre-Merc-meltdown - I arrived home.
Mind you that wasn't really the frustrating part....
The really frustrating part came the next day, Sunday, when I went out, bought a new belt and began the disassembly process. Now up until Sunday the week had been beautiful, mid-60s or low 70s, sunny - nice. On Sunday it was in the low 40s (or even high 30s) with a - and I am not kidding here - 40mph wind. I'm just now able to feel my fingers. The entire disassembly took soooooooooo long. There are 3 belts on a 76 Merc diesel, power steering, AC, and then the alt, water pump, fan belt last of all, and closest to the engine. So naturally all the others had to come off first.
I cut the AC belt because the AC is long gone, but the power steering took about 1.5 hours to get off after loosening the pump and wiggling my hand and the belt in a space that only a five year old could reasonably reach. I finally had to ask Tara to get the belt off while I pushed the power steering pump out of the way. The remainder of the time was spent trying to develop extra joints in order to twist bolts that had last been seen and twisted sometime in the early Precambrian and were located somewhere outside of our space-time reality. Oh yes, and then there was the matter of the horn I had to remove to make the envelope sized space to get my hand to the belt in the first place. I lost the bolt. So once I finally got everything back together there was about 10 minutes of shuffling through the grass to find the bolt and then another 5 while I tried to convince my numb fingers to start the bolt in the threads so I could use the ratchet.
I like to pride myself on being fairly mechanically adept. That was before I bought the diesel. Which is running fine now, thank you very much.
---------------------------------------------
* It should be noted that I still have dreams about taking the 77' BMW 320i I have fitting a fiberglass hood, trunklid, and fenders, stripping the interior, dropping about a grand on the engine and lighter/wider wheels and driving that for fun on summer days.... ...120hp goes a-long-way with 1800lbs..... but then again it's been on jack-stands for a year now and I've agreed to give it away to the original owner - so that's likely to remain a dream.
posted by AK | 16:35
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