Just for posterity, I need to tell the story of my Wednesday morning. This doesn't have much to do with the technology I usually blog about, but I worked my Nexus 5 into the story just to tie it in.
It started on Tuesday night. As I was leaving MBA classes at Bethel University in St Paul, I noticed a little rattling noise coming from the engine of my 1996 Cadillac Seville STS. It sounded like a noisy lifter, or something along that line. So I shrugged and drove home.
By the time I arrived at my home in Columbia Heights, there was smoke coming from the engine, it smelled odd, and was making a lot of noise. I got out the flashlight app on my Nexus 5, and I could see the smoke was coming from the AC compressor. Probably the bearing, but I'm still not certain of that.
So I went to bed and when I woke up I texted my brother-in-law, who then called me and helped determine that I had better not drive it to Anoka in that condition. So I called my boss and said I'd be late. Which sucks because another coworker was going to be late too, and his reason was actually work related.
I had done my research on various internet forums and learned that to bypass the AC compressor, I needed a serpentine belt that is 9 inches shorter than the normal one. So I drove over to Auto Zone and bought what I thought was the correct belt. I took it home and then realized I needed a 1/2" breaker bar, so then I drove over to Harbor Freight and bought a cheap one.
When I got all that home, I removed the old belt (which is in pretty rough condition) and put on the new belt, only to find that it was too long for my purposes.
At this point I was already a couple hours late for work. So I said to heck with it, I'm going to drive to work and fix it later that night.
I only made it a few miles before it was smoking even more and making lots of noise. So I turned around and went back to Auto Zone. I told them I needed a belt that was 6 inches shorter, so they sold me that. I got a refund for the other belt and went home.
This time I removed the original belt and installed the new one, only to find out it was too short. Just about 6 inches too short. So it seems the first belt I had bought was not the size it said it was on the packaging. I didn't want to put the old belt on again, plus it was looking pretty rough. By now it was 11 am and I was really frustrated. I decided to get on my bicycle and head over to Advance Auto and try them.
I get there only to find that all of their belts are numbered by the metric system, but the guy helped me figure out what I needed and I bought that. I stuck it in my back pocket and biked home.
When I got home I was already well acquainted with the way I needed to route the belt. It went on in about 5 minutes. I fired up the engine and it sounded great. I went inside, washed the grease off my hands (and arms) and put on my office clothes. I finally got to work just past noon.
As a side note, every time I changed the belt, all three times, I burned my arm on the motor mount. So I have a nice collection of blisters which are still healing. I think I'll be staying out of the river this weekend. Not worth the risk of infection.
Now my car runs and gets me around, but I have no AC until I fix the compressor. So I'll have to get with my brother-in-law again and see that he thinks I need for parts. More fun in store for sure!
