Broken Jeep and Other Stuff

Broken Jeep.

On Monday when we went to Lake Havasu City to the movies  there was a new noise in the jeep.
Patti and I were sitting at a stop light with a lot of cars and noisy trucks.  We both noticed a sound like a Helicopter flying overhead. Patti looked out the window and sure enough there was a helicopter flying around. We thought no more of it until we pulled into the parking lot for the theater. We pulled into a spot and when we stopped we heard the helicopter sound again. When I turned off the engine the helicopter went away.

Oh,oh!

I started the engine again and the noise came back. I looked at the belt and listened to the noise but could not determine where it was coming from.
It looked like the Harmonic Balancer was wiggling a little but they often look like that.

Lets Go to the Movie.

We decided that we should go ahead and see the movie and worry about the jeep later.

We went to the movie and it was great as I said in the last post.

After the movie we went to supper and then headed for home.
The jeep ran great all the way home.

The Next Morning.

Tuesday morning I loaded up a bunch of garbage and drove to the dump.
When I got there there were already a bunch of people waiting to dump their garbage.
While I was waiting in line I let the jeep idle and could hear a clumpety-clumpety sound coming from the engine area.
I dumped the garbage and went home.

Back Home.

When I got home I drove the jeep up onto the concrete slab. I got a long screw driver to use as a stethoscope and with the engine running I listened to a lot of different possible areas where I thought the sound was coming from. After covering the possibilities on top of the engine, I crawled under the jeep and listened to the transmission but the sound wasn’t coming from there.
I put the point of the screw driver against the oil pan and the end of the handle against my ear and there was the sound. “clumpety-clumpety-clumpety”.

Oh damn! that’s not good. That sounds like I may need a new engine. I will have to get a second opinion.
I figured I would talk to Dennis M tomorrow and see what he thinks.

Patti Needs to do Laundry.

Patti needed to do some laundry so I told her that she could use the jeep to go to the Laundromat but I couldn’t guarantee the jeep would make it. The Laundromat is only 1/2 mile away.

She got out of the driveway and down the street when she lost the power steering and she said that is sounded like she was dragging a string of cans down the road. She managed to get back to our place and I heard her driving in. The jeep was clattering something fierce.

Checking it Out.

I went out and popped the hood on the jeep and looked in. The engine was running but the fan belt wasn’t moving.
I told Patti turn the engine off. I could see that the belt was off the pulleys and that the Harmonic Balancer outer ring had moved forward to where it was hitting the van.
I could not believe it, this is the second time I have had a Harmonic Balancer fail.
The first one ever was on my van.
Now, the jeep has one come apart.
Of course the jeep has over 200,000 miles on it. I have no Idea how many miles the balancer on the van had; at least 300,000 or more.

Okay, that is a lot better than a blown engine.
I’ll have to see if the guy at Best Auto can get it in soon.
This morning I went to Best Auto repair and made an appointment to bring the jeep in at 8:30 in the morning.
I’ll tow the jeep there with Dave’s jeep. Its only les than a mile away.

Broken Drawers

In the mean time on Saturday, I went to close a drawer below the pantry and the drawer runner fell off.

I didn’t have time to work on it then so I put it off until Tuesday.
Of course Tuesday was the day the jeep stopped working. I had the pantry torn apart and needed to go get parts.

Patti called Dave R and I asked him if I could use his jeep for a couple of days. He is so gracious that he said of course I could.

Therefore I was able to get parts and Patti was able to do laundry.
I got the drawers working and everything back in the pantry.

When Patti got home she helped me put the doors back on the pantry.

Okay, that’s all for today.