Not Again!!!

Yesterday was a good day until I left work. Not long after leaving the parking lot, I heard a noise under my hood that sounded like a snap and a clunk. I didn't really know what it was, but I knew it wasn't a natural engine noise (Seventeen years in the auto parts industry helped me come to that conclusion!) Well, I thought it would be OK until I got home because the engine was still running and the car proceeded to move down the street when the light turned green. I did notice immediately that the power steering was gone so I figured that the belt had broken or something similar.

As time passed and traffic hindered, other strange noises started coming from under the hood. During the downtown portion of the journey, a loud knocking sound began but stopped when I started moving again. By the time I made it to Lake Wheeler Road, the engine was hot (still in the normal range, but definitely not "normal" for just driving down the road) and the knocking was getting worse. There was also another sound coming from the front of the vehicle and I decided to pull off at the Grocery Boy Jr. at Lake Wheeler Road and Carolina Pines Avenue. After stiffly maneuvering the vehicle into the parking lot, I just cut the engine right where I parked without bothering to park it in a perpendicular fashion. The sound finally stopped after a while and that's when I realized that it was the water boiling in the radiator. Naturally, I immediately called Dad. Who else??

When he arrived a few minutes later, he opened the hood and found out that the "snap crackle pop" I heard was not the belt as we originally thought but instead it was my idler pulley. The bearing had frozen causing the pulley to quit turning which put too much force on the bold causing it to snap in two. The pulley then broke away and landed near the engine. Thank goodness it didn't fall through the engine! We then had to call a tow truck because there was no fixing the pulley then. The tow truck arrived about 15 freezing minutes later and towed my vehicle home. Dad called a mobile mechanic he knows and he was able to come today to fix it. All he did was replace the bearing and the bolt. I will test drive it tomorrow and hopefully no permanent damage was done.

I was not in the best of moods last night because it's not even been a year since my engine was replaced. But since it was an easy repair (compared to replacing the engine!) I have returned to my normal self. I still think that the pulley should have been replaced with the engine, but what do I know. I certainly am not one to get grease under my finger nails unless it's in the kitchen!

Here's to a brighter day with the Green Machine!

Have a blessed day!