A couple weeks ago my van apparently started losing radiator fluid. I was just driving along one night and got a warning light. What tha??? First thing ya do is check fluids. Let the van cool for a bit (never open a radiator cap on a hot motor. You will be scalded like all get out!) (Don't worry. I know that rule. I grew up in a "car" family.)
I filled it back up and saw no leaking. Odd. Rechecked my oil. Nope. Not in there! (whew. That would be bad!) So I called my friend and get-me-out-of-messes guy, the Captain, and my sometimes knight in (mostly tarnished) shining armor. We discussed it and he said to keep an eye on water levels. He was heading out of town for arborist convention something or other thingie but would be back Sunday.
Sunday proved to be a good day for him to come home!
Sunday night in the parking lot at work it let go. My girlfriend brought me home (thanks Becky) and the next morning he and I went and looked at the van. Given the age of the van I was worried something major was happening. I couldn't find the source of the leak. He found it. Turns out it is leaking at the water pump gasket to the engine. A can of stop leak fixed that. Or so I thought.
I drove it home but the next night it was leaking again so more stuff goes into the radiator (this time I didn't bother to make my knight come out I just dumped the powder in there myself) and drove it around a while. It was happy. Yay! Go! Van! Go!
Then Wednesday morning I got up to go to work and got 50 feet down the farn road and there on my damn dashboard my CHECK ENGINE light popped on. What tha??? Reallly? Sigh. I stopped and checked the fluids. All fine. (Again. Never open a hot radiator folks.) I called my knight and told him. He assured me I wouldn't kill it driving it to work. Go to work. The worst that would happen is I would lose power and he would come get me. My alternator was about to go. Well. Ok. It's only 6 miles to work and I got there safely.
Getting home proved to be another matter. Just a mile down the road I knew I had a problem. Sigh. Lights dimmed. Then went darj and then… Well. It was kinda cool actually. I think my van was possessed by demons. The lights randomly started flickering really fast all over the van. Inside dome. Radio. Turn signal. Passenger door. Inside dome and dash. It was like driving a rave van!!! How funny!!!
Only problem was I was on a pitch black highway. But I made it to an industrial warehouse parking lot and called my knight again.
No hurry hon. I have a good book.
He came and we did a quick test to see. Charged battery and disconnected cables and the van dies immediate. Yep. Alternator.
We argue about leaving the van there vs the merits of trying to move it 10 spaces. (HE wanted to move it). I decided to straighten the van in the parking spot (my daddy taught me how to be a courteous parker damn it and I had backed into the spot but the van died before I could straighten it. :-/) So. With jumper cables attached to his truck we moved my van straight. Happy me. Good night white van. I'll be back for you in the morning!
Off we go the five miles to my house. My rusty knight turns into my driveway. Or tried to. And HIS truck died. Seriously!!! Half way across the road!!! It's a dark two lane countey road and we had effectively blocked both lanes. Ack!!!
Happily it's a smaller truck. Got it into the driveway with not much effort and after 30 minutes of tinkering and thinking, a trip by Andrea (thank you Andrea!) to the gas station around the corner get a gallon of gas in case his has gas gauge was the problem as he was low anyway - he remembered that his ford has a safety switch to shut fuel off in case of a wreck. A quick nail and drill fixed that and home he went. Tomorrow we will go fix the van!
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