Here I am making my way home, on the M8 leaving Edinburgh. The traffic is starting to build as the 5pm rush hour is sending traffic swarming around me. Now you are probably thinking 'so you got stuck in a little traffic' 'oh how my heart bleeds' but you are still probably wondering what that has to do with the exploding old age pensioner? Well let me tell you a little more, I drive a black mini van and use it as a sort of van for work and as i'm driving through the slow moving traffic I noticed my poor little workhorse seems to be struggling with the steering. I continued to fight my way through the lanes of traffic heading towards the A1 and all I can think to my self is my lights are getting dimmer, suddenly fear grips me! I am 300 miles from home and my car is loosing power steering and has slowly diminishing lights as i'm trying to drive back to home.
So by now you have realised there is no exploding old age pensioner, and that the OAP was in fact my over running alternator pulley. Faced with the prospect of my belt being snapped or my tensioner letting go (at this point i still didn't realise the whole pulley decided to die) I decided my best bet was to floor it home and hope the battery would last. Unfortunatly my OAP has been causing my car to be ruining well under optimum efficiency so I managed about 200 miles on battery alone. Forced to pull in to a roadside parking section (the car died the second I pulled in, talk about lucky) I opened my bonnet prepared for the worst and to my surprise I see the belt has sliped off and the OAP is dead, bits of steel bearings are turned to dust around me and the insides of the race are crumbling away.
Stuck on the side of the road with no mobile phone signal and a dead car I was forced to use what I had to hand in the back of the little bus, luckily I had some basic tools and a few torches. i was able to jerryrig the OAP back on the race using a combination of spit and brute force, and give my self enough slack in the tensioner with a 18mm socket and wrench to get the belt ran in place. taking my battery powered air compressor I managed to connect the battery to my car, anxiously I turn the key, the car splutters and dies. I panic that was my last chance, what the fuck was I meant to do? Pausing for a second I think just try again, so i turn the key and give a gentle rev. The car springs in to life filling me with equal parts dread and hope, I approach the bonnet to see if its holding and it is.
Five minuets go by as I wait for the battery to gain some more charge, the alternator pully is firing sparks everywhere, panic sets back in and I decide this is all or nothing, I close the lid, jump in the seat, buckle up and headed for home.
So did I make it home you ask? not even close 15 miles further down the road I hear an almighty bang and the tell tale signs of dimming headlights started to happen, I was able to make it about another 15 miles before coasting to a stop in a quiet country village. Feeling a sense of relief to be in a place with shops, phone signal and transport I took a calming walk for five minuets before calling my brother to come rescue me with a couple of charged battery's.
So the moral of this story I guess is look after your vehicles, or maybe join roadside assistance? in my case I have been putting off changing the belts for at least 6 months, so I kind of deserved it.
