Learning Curve: Cars

I guess it's a miracle it happened when and where it did....

I was due at a committee meeting at church on Friday afternoon, and did some major rushing to get there in time, including a quick trip to the shops for the upcoming week's groceries. Happily trundling along at speed, fave tape playing loudly, I became aware of a "beat" that had nothing to do with the drums on the tape! In fact, it was more of an irregular clonking noise....

I made it to the church parking lot, and found the radiator water bottle clonking along, filled with pretty hot water. While replenishing it, I noticed what the ACTUAL clonking had been - the alternator had completely fallen off and the fanbelt was throwing it against various other parts!

What happened was that a lower bolt had fallen out, putting strain on the other 2 brackets holding the alternator in place, which had promptly sheared off completely!

Well, I didn't hear or say much in the committee, but was blessed to have my good friend there, who I asked for a lift home, not quite sure what I'd do with the car... She offered her little ancient Renault 5 - what a car! It's fun to drive, simply because you attract a lot of attention. You can hear it coming miles away and it jerks along happily with the breeze blowing through the rust spots! :)

Thanks to the offer I made it home - late, but home. Yesterday morning I managed to get back to the church and take the alternator off before going to find replacement parts. (Impressed a few post-church men who thought I knew what I was doing - little did they know! Still have 2 very stuck bolts to wrestle later.) Of course, being Sunday, all was closed and quiet, but I managed to find out where to go to get the parts, and am going to be able to do that this afternoon. Yes, I'm actually going to fix it myself, instead of paying someone to do what I can do.

If this had happened in town, if I hadn't made it to the relatively-safe church parking lot, if my friend hadn't turned up and offered her car...well, things could have been very different.

So here I am, veins of grease still stuck in my skin (unscrubbable), a little bit wiser as to what goes on in my engine, and counting my blessings.