Suck, Bang, Blow! That's Right!

SHIP'S LOG:

"Suck, Bang, Blow" is actually the name of a biker bar in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, just off of the ICW. The name comes, supposedly, from the engine sounds of an old Panhead Harley Davidson when you try to kick start it. It also , along with "Pop," "Squeal" and "Grind," are the sound recently made by my POS Hyundai. I got the belts replaced, well two out of three, last week and Saturday evening I was headed up to Somers to have dinner with some friends. On the way up Route 9, there came a "pop" and then some "squealing" and a little "grinding," followed by a loss in power and then "suck, bang blow" and I lurched to a stop by the side of the road.

Long story short, the alternator had stopped charging and the battery had run down and I was without electrical power to run the engine. Unlike with a diesel, electricity is something you need to run a gas engine. I contacted a friend in the area of the breakdown and he came by and gave me boost which got me a few miles before POS died again and AAA had to be called for a tow. Good friend Ray told me to check the alternator as it had recently had a new belt installed. It was a simple check and it was immediately clear that that one of the bolts holding the alternator to the engine appeared to have backed out. It turned out that it had not so much backed out and broken off! Two other friends got the POS to a heated garage with the intent of removing the alternator, drilling out the broken bolt, tapping the hole and boss for a new bolt an re-installing the alternator. Surprisingly, after a couple of hours in the heated garage, the metal warmed enough so that the broken bolt could be un-threaded. A new one was quickly procured and the alternator, reinstalled, happily procured the necessary voltage an the POS was once again running, saving God alone knows how may hundreds of dollars don't have. The "Check Engine"light was still on and I went to Advance Auto and had them do a computer check of the systems. The alternator was working fine but the computer indicated that the engine had "multiple miss-fires." The clerk suggested that since I had recently replaced all the plugs and wires, that possibly one of the connectors was loose and that I should " give them all a check, move'em around a bit" and the miss-fires would stop and the light would go out.Yeah, right! Well I did and it did. It is a good thing to have friends! Ghosts in the machine!