Rains and Pours ;-)

[Tom Mandera <tsm1@domain.elided>]

Last week, after arriving home one evening, I heard a "tap... tap... tap" 
like water on the floor covering, but I didn't see anything.. "Hrrmmm..."

I was supposed to head up to Canada on Thursday to ski on New Years.. 
instead we opted to cruise over to Missoula and spend the weekend there..

On the drive over, I had a hard time keeping the windshield from fogging 
up, but eventually it cleared up.

Then, as I near Missoula, I notice the alternator gauge flipping back and 
forth... Hmmm..

Drive around Missoula a little over the weekend.. idling, it would show a 
large discharge.. rev it, and it would flicker in the Charge area.. it's 
a 90amp alt that's always required a "spike" to get it going.. it 
*seemed* as though the "spike" point had jumped much higher!

Well, fine, I plan on doing 60-70mph on the way home anyhow, so.. 

I start smelling antifreeze... that's not good.

10 miles outside of Missoula, alt gauge flipping a little bit, suddenly 
the windshield is VERY fogged.  Turn the heater selector to DEFroster and 
it gets.. *worse*.  Grab some paper towels, wipe the windshield.. 10 
seconds later, wipe it again.. Hmmm..

I turned to Michelle, in the passenger seat, and asked, "Is your floor 
wet?"  Nope, but sticky... Hmmm...

30 miles later, and a LOT of wiping, I pull of at Drummond, MT.. make a 
wrong turn and go a ways n' turn around.  My friend Dan was behind us in 
his '99 Suby Outback (he only rubs it in now and then that his Suby is a 
bit more reliable than the ol' Binder.. but agrees I can go places his 
car wouldn't dream of.. OTOH, he goes past gas stations, which I can't 
do)..  Anyhow, as I make my U-turn, I roll the driver's window down to 
see.. "smoke" starts billowing out of the cab.. and *in* the cab.. as the 
cold outside air meets the warm and *humid* air in the Scout.. 

Pull up to the gas station I was aiming for and pop the hood.. no coolant 
at the heater inlet, none at the outlet, but on the inner fender, below 
the heater core, there's antifreeze.  Open the door, on the passenger 
floor along the door edge.. antifreeze.  It ran along the underside of 
the dash (or so) and down across the dog-house/trans tunnel and then down 
in front of the passenger seat base and off to the door.. so the 
passenger floor wasn't exactly soaked.

Argh.

I closed the heater valve, closed the flapper, and put my Parka back on.. 
open then wing window, and head for Helena.. as I pull out, I notice the 
temp gauge all the way to the "HOT" side.. and punch it on the on-ramp.. 
and the temp goes down.. 

Then, of course, the alternator stops working at all... off goes the 
stereo, and I'm cruising along with dim headlights.. as we reach the 
bottom of the pass, I shift to 3rd and rev the motor.. alternator starts 
charging.. yippee.. only to be greeted by the sound of the lifters 
clattering from oil starvation!  What else is going to go wrong?!

Eventually I made it home and parked the Scout in the driveway.. now that 
I'm done reading email, I'm going to change, head outside, and see if the 
alt belt is loose.. at the same time, I'll be yanking the heater core 
from the '72, and swapping it into the '77.. and take the heater core 
from the '77 in for repairs... which means yanking the washer bottle and 
air compressor doo-dads out again.. 

If it isn't one thing it's another... ;-)

-Tom Mandera, Helena MT
http://www.tmcom.com/~tsm1/scout