:whoops:
So I get in the car after a long happy hour and I think I hear a funny noise at low RPM, sorta like an intermittent whirring. It goes away when you touch the gas so I didn't think anything of it...
Drop a friend off and hop on the highway. As I accelerate up the ramp the Filter light goes on; this is very weird as I just emptied the thing a week ago. It goes off for a while only to come on again. Now I'm thinking this is too weird that I heard a funny new noise AND my filter light is acting up.
Looking around the dash for clues I notice the temperature gauge is at the 3/4 mark! utoh!: pulled right over. I've never seen it that high before (usually hangs out at 1/3). I'd just repaired, last weekend, a radiator leak so I was carrying a gallon of coolant "just in case", so I thought maybe I sprung a new leak and lost some coolant. I figured that if I was low I could remove the cap without too much trouble, so I sacrificed my shirt and took the cap off; almost no pressure. When I added coolant, I was surprised that it only took ~1/2 gallon; thats what it "usually" drinks when I top it off (the overflow tank seems to suck it out until theres 1/2 gallon of free space), so it didn't look like I was leaking.
... which is when I noticed the belt nearly hanging off my alternator!!! Somehow it managed to vibrate itself loose; the noise I heard when I got in the car was the belt just starting to slip. I didn't have any wrenches, so I beat it back into good tension with a tire iron and the jack as a hammer, and made it the rest of the way home at 1/3 on the temp gauge.
Close one!
Heres the question though; why did the filter light come on? I did check if it needed a drain when I got home; nothing came out.
So I get in the car after a long happy hour and I think I hear a funny noise at low RPM, sorta like an intermittent whirring. It goes away when you touch the gas so I didn't think anything of it...
Drop a friend off and hop on the highway. As I accelerate up the ramp the Filter light goes on; this is very weird as I just emptied the thing a week ago. It goes off for a while only to come on again. Now I'm thinking this is too weird that I heard a funny new noise AND my filter light is acting up.
Looking around the dash for clues I notice the temperature gauge is at the 3/4 mark! utoh!: pulled right over. I've never seen it that high before (usually hangs out at 1/3). I'd just repaired, last weekend, a radiator leak so I was carrying a gallon of coolant "just in case", so I thought maybe I sprung a new leak and lost some coolant. I figured that if I was low I could remove the cap without too much trouble, so I sacrificed my shirt and took the cap off; almost no pressure. When I added coolant, I was surprised that it only took ~1/2 gallon; thats what it "usually" drinks when I top it off (the overflow tank seems to suck it out until theres 1/2 gallon of free space), so it didn't look like I was leaking.
... which is when I noticed the belt nearly hanging off my alternator!!! Somehow it managed to vibrate itself loose; the noise I heard when I got in the car was the belt just starting to slip. I didn't have any wrenches, so I beat it back into good tension with a tire iron and the jack as a hammer, and made it the rest of the way home at 1/3 on the temp gauge.
Close one!
Heres the question though; why did the filter light come on? I did check if it needed a drain when I got home; nothing came out.
