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Posted by Andy B
on 9/11/2009, 6:14 am
71.72.69.24
OK, so as of yesterday, my '82 had a cracked brake line, and my '81 had a pretty decent coolant leak. I traced the leak to the pipe-to-engine hose. My plan was to work a few days limping it along, adding water every few deliveries, until I had the cash to buy all the rubber hoses at once. I figured, why spend a couple of hours draining the radiator, jacking it up, getting all dirty, and refilling the thing without getting the job done right. In the meantime, I'd replace the brake line on the other car at my leisure.
Well, a couple of problems popped up. One, I didn't make the cash I had planned. Not even close. Apparently this year's freshmen were raised by wolves and don't know to tip the pizza man. Two, the brake line goes all the way from the differential to the proportioning valve, and I don't know how the hell I'm going to fix it without a lift. Three, when I came out to go to work last night, my tire was flat. Need a plug in it. Actually, I just need two new tires, but that'll have to wait. Four, on delivery tonight I heard a clunk, followed by a metallic sound, as if something had gotten stuck in the engine. Next trip I discovered my starter was out. Roll-starts the rest of the night. Lovely. Can't leave it running because of the coolant leak, of course.
So anyway, now that I'm done (sort of) complaining, I have a question. Since the clunk, and the noise, happened at the same time the starter went out, they would have to be related, right? Here's the deal. The starter motor whines like the engine's running when I try to start it. When driving, only under a load, it sounds like there's a loose piece of metal getting tossed about in the engine. Pretty loud. I'm not entirely sure, or even partially sure for that matter, how a starter motor actually works, but I assume there's some sort of gears in there that mesh with some part of the engine, right? Could one of those gears be broken off? Any ideas?