Yesterday morning, as I turned the key to unlock [464], I noticed the power locks didn’t unlock all the other doors as I did so. Uh-oh.
Attempting to fire the engine only confirmed it. The battery was dead. Fortunately, my Galants are both stickshifts, so I left the key in the ON position, put the car in reverse, engaged the clutch, and rolled the car back down the driveway. I popped the clutch and… nothiiiiiiiiing. I pushed the old girl to the curb in front of my neighbor’s house and gave him a call to see if I could get a jump. No answer.
Deciding to just call AAA to come give me a jump, I locked the car and headed back inside to wait in the air conditioning. (It was already pushing 100°F outside at 9AM and pushing 3,500lbs of car around in a shirt and slacks pretty much demanded air conditioning at this point.) As I approached the front door, I reached into my pocket for my keys… which were still in the ignition of the now locked vehicle on the street.
FAIL.
Vanessa ended up leaving work to let me into the house, try to jump the car, and get me on my way, but it took two tries to get the car to stay running and, even then, I was only getting 10.8VDC at the battery terminals while the engine was running. Deciding the alternator had shit the bed, I hitched a ride in to work.
Last night, I spent a couple hours yanking the old alty out of [464], hoping to drop the “new” alty (belonging to [195]) in. Due to darkness, heat, and an exceedingly filthy work environment (clearly, I need to re-seal the oil pan), I called it a night when I discovered part of the alternator tensioner assembly had slipped behind the replacement alternator and I would have to pull it back out again.
Today, I bummed another ride to and from work. Pretty sad when you’ve got TWO Galant VR4s and BOTH are out of commission. Tonight I’m back out in the heat, putting this turd back together again. Hopefully I don’t end up having to replace the battery too.