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Okay the Nurburgring will have to wait. There was one more little thing I wanted to share. You know how you do stupid stuff that ends up freaking you out. Well I pulled a dandy tonight.
I left Opry Mills a bit spiritedly. I can’t help it I love corners, especially big sweepers. Just as I floated out onto Briley the Battery light didn’t just flicker like it will under heavy acceleration, it came on and stayed on so I backed off to about sixty and it went off. Now this was odd because I had not really been accelerating as heavily as I would usually have to get the light to just flicker and every time I tried to speed up to just seventy the light would come on nice and bright. At this point I’m hoping I’ve cooked the alternator, at least one fifty maybe two hindered to replace, I actually checked on that kind of stuff before I bought the car, and not that the belt is frayed or about to come off. The belt is only a couple of months old so shouldn’t be a problem unless something else was busted and causing problems, plus if it came off that would mean no water pump so that would mean waiting on the side of the road for a tow then having to figure out how to get a belt tomorrow with out a running vehicle. Of course if the alternator froze up it would likely throw the belt and I’d be in the same predicament anyway and still have to buy a new alternator.
Anyway so I’m cruising down Briley at sixty cars whizzing by me. When I get to I-65 I have to slow down even more to keep the light off. My the time I’m headed up Old Hickory I’ve got to keep her below 45 to keep the light off. I cruise by Auto Zone on the off chance they are still open. It’s right before eleven at this point and they stay open till midnight at some locations during the summer, I can’t remember specifically why I know that but it involves DeMartini. No dice, they are as dark as a, as a, hmm, as a closed AutoZone. So I cruise back toward the house. I’m sitting at the light waiting to turn back onto Old Hickory and I happen to look down at the gear indicator. It’s on “2″. I had been driving around in second gear. Which meant the alternator was turning speeds it was intended to only turn for short periods of time, it got hot. When it gets hot enough it stops charging. So I put the gear selector into “D” and everything went back to normal. I’ll try and get it checked tomorrow anyway just to be safe. I’ve been meaning to do that, I want to be able to hold the throttle down through all the gears. I’ve not been able to do that since I bought the car. The Battery light will flicker and I back out of it, it’s instinct, too many years of driving around with thirty five dollar alternators that got replaced every three months.
Tags: Alternator, Stupid