Well for those of you are wondering what Audrey ( got2havesvx) is talking about, here goes.
I left my house at 10:15AM on friday. Everything was fine and going great except for the back brakes (thanks you Race Concepts for your speedy and accurate shipping estimate
). I bought pads the night before and was planning on putting them in once I arrived in TN. I drove straight to PA via 84, 87, 287,78,81 or something like that. I stopped for a pit stop at the PA/MD line. I went inside for maybe all of three minutes and came outside to a dead car. I went inside and asked if there was someone there who could jump me and a worker ended up having a battery jumper with him. A few minutes later I was on my way again thinking that what had just happened was a freak accident. Little did I know.......
I got to the exit in VA to get to Audrey's house at about 9:30PM. I pulled off and pulled over at the bottom of the ramp to read the directions for the last few turns. My car died.... Completely... I couldn't even turn on my hazards. I called Audrey and she came out and jumped me and then I followed her to her house. We got there and she offered me the alternator out of her black svx. I removed hers and then went to remove mine. However when I went to do that I noticed that the nut that holds the tension pulley in the slider was missing and the pulley was almost completely off
. I then decided that had been causing the problems and took Audrey's nut off of her tension pulley. At that point it started to rain. EDIT: It started to
POUR . Thunder, lightning, and the heaviest rain that I have ever been outside in. I dropped that nut somewhere on her gravel driveway and it was immediately lost. I then took the nut off of her other tension pulley ( for the AC). That one did the trick, but it took us probably 2 hours before we had it done. Her daughter who had been holding an umbrella over us actually was the one who had the small enough hands to get the nut going. I then reinstalled the belts, still using my own alternator. I changed into dry clothes, put the seats in her garage, she gave me a set of old rotors that still have plenty of life left in them, and then I was on my way. Sort of.....
I stalled three times and she jumped me three times just trying to back out of the driveway. Finally I get out and start going down her road. At this point it is about 12:15AM on Saturday. I start going down the road and about 100 yards down the road the car dies. I am now on a completely unlit road in the middle of a storm in a car that I cannot even turn my hazards on. I start sprinting back down the road to get to her house before a car comes. However, before I get there I see headlights coming up over the hill. I stop and wave the car down and ask the driver to go park next to my car and turn his hazards on. He obliges and I keep running to Audrey's house. I get there and knock and she comes out and we go jump it in her Explorer. She drives my car and I drive the Explorer to the gas station. It is now about 12:30. I fill up with gas and as I am finishing Audrey heads home. I go to drive away and the car dies. I tried calling Audrey, but her cell phone got wrecked in the rain trying to fix my car. Also, I should add that the gas station was closed too at this point. Desperate I called 911. Quickly told the operator that there was no emergency, but that I needed a tow truck driver to come and jump me. She says that she will send someone out. It had stopped raining at this point for a few minutes but started again when I called the 911 operator. So, now I am stranded at a gas station with my driver side window all the way down, with no way of putting it up. So , I stood outside my car in the rain leaning against the window blocking the rain with my body. The tow truck driver came about an hour later and finally after I stopped him twice (because A. he had the jumper cables crossed and B. because he dropped the end in a puddle and went to connect the other end to his running truck), we got the car running and he tried to charge me $75. I only had 58 bucks in my wallet, and he took it all. I decided to not risk it, and just sit there and let the car run because I was on a completely unlit highway and would have had to been driving with tons of accessories on (high beams, wipers on high setting, and defroster). So, I sat and semi-napped and woke up at 3:45AM to the car dying. I sat there (at least with my windows closed now) till 5:30 when the gas station opened.
At that point a worker at the gas station gave me a jump start and I immediately took off. Four and a half miles down the road, the car quit in the middle of the road at 70mph (which I was doing in third gear to keep my RPMs up). I have a friend who goes to Liberty University and I happened to coast by a sign for Liberty after my car died. I decided to try and call him. At this point it was 5:57AM. He answered the phone, and was actually just getting in bed after an all night poker tournament. He came to pick me up and come to find out I was literally less than two miles from his house. He drove me back to Audrey's house. We took the alternator from the black car, and went back and installed it in my red car on the side of 460W. We then jumped it with his roommate's monster jeep, drove the svx back to his house, and let it run while I showered. Came out, went to leave, and the car was dead. At this point, I was extremely frustrated, to say the least. So we went to Chick-fil-A for breakfast.
After we went back, I napped for an hour and then took his car and went to get a battery. I ended up leaving his house with a new battery, a working alternator, and a fixed tension pulley at 1:45PM. After a nap along the way, I got to my final destination, Knoxville, TN, at 7:30PM. Ate dinner, did the rear brakes, showered, and went to bed. So, ended my day.
Thank you, Audrey (and daughter) for everything. I owe you an alternator and two nuts. They will be in the mail when I get home next Monday.