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So...have 45 minutes until the flatbed gets here...here's my fun story of the first time I've been stranded by my 964 after 4+ years of ownership...
The ole 964 had been sitting for a couple weeks. It's a Friday in July - gonna take her out for some easy running. I throw on the trickle charger and workout. Car starts up fine an hour later. I see my mother in law biking back and decided to flash my brights at her just to say hi.
Immediately afterwards, the Anti-Lock light, which has never illuminated outside the start sequence goes off with a buzzer followed by the battery light on the clock. Being far enough from my garage I chalked it up to a low battery and figured once the car drove a little and got the alternator spinning, it would clear itself.
Drive to work. Park, found a great spot with two columns on either side, so poor parkers and door openers won't worry me.
Work. Watch Belgium-Brazil. Fantastic match. Neymar still a crybaby, but at least he showed why he's a superstar.
Back to car, start up. Anti-Lock and battery still lit. Humph. Will take care of it when I get home. Decide to take 280 anyway because it's Friday and it adds a couple miles to my commute.
Car begins to act funny - check engine light intermittently flashes, but car still feels good and I'm in the middle of Sand Hill Road. Just want to get home.
Car dies in front of Lightspeed's HQ. Put flashers on, get flicked off a couple of times. When light changes to red, get some help from some nice folks who help push me to the side. Still figuring this is a battery issue, I drop the clutch, car fired up again. Yippee.
Get onto onramp. Stuck behind Subaru who insists on taking circular onramp at 15mph. Car stalls out and I roll to a shady spot. Pop hood to make sure battery is connected. Check.
Pop rear hood. Alternator belt is hanging out, off the tracks. At least the problem is obvious.
Call wife - bring the emergency jump kit - she's not happy. Try to jump car, figuring battery not charging = poor spark = poor running. Nothing. Call for tow...takes 15 minutes to get anyone. Try jumping again - works this time, but running as poorly as before. Queue 5 minutes and car stall again.
Now just hanging out in car.
Plan to replace belt, trickle charge to full, and hope nothing got messed up.
Thanks guys, yeah, hope it's a simple fix too. I still can't believe (and spent my tow truck time talking about) how the belt jumped out. It's a relatively new belt, and despite using a crowbar and special tools, could not stretch it back into place. I did that to see if it was physically possible and at this point I'm thinking the belt pulled a houdini.
New belt on order, and will pull the apparatus off to get the alternator belt back. Tow driver mentioned that maybe the alternator is kaput, but I have no idea. Will look into that...
Lesson learned - don't flash your brights at your mother in law....
If/when your alternator/alt belt/etc. goes bad you can drive approx. 80 miles on a good battery without the lights or radio on. In 80 miles you need to get to an Autozone to get a fresh battery. I visited 2 Autozones before I got home (when I lived in CA) when my alt. pooped the bed .
For the alt belt to pull out of it's pulley, I would think that the shim pack and sheaves weren't quite set right on install or the bearing in the alt are shot. Let us know what you find.
Well I think I found the culprit. When I was fishing out my 3-square that I dropped I also found another socket that got seriously messed up living underneath the belt
Note the big chip on that socket - some serious force was applied!
Well I think I found the culprit. When I was fishing out my 3-square that I dropped I also found another socket that got seriously messed up living underneath the belt
Note the big chip on that socket - some serious force was applied!
it had possibly been under the pulley. Check that for chips and whether it’s still true.
^^ Yeah, will continue to fish down there for other bits to make sure this doesn't happen again. My friends at Sonnen are shipping me the specialty tool and a new belt, so I should have the car back in action later this week. It's been on the trickle charger ever since, and fired right up when I tried starting it, but the ABS light was still on, leading me to believe that I'm going to need a new battery as per Murphy's Law. I looked at my existing battery (which was original to when I bought the car, 4+ years ago) and it appears to be an H6 battery - does that sound right?
Once you get the car running again, I'd be curious to know what voltage you're seeing with the car off, with the engine at idle, and with the engine at 3000 rpm.
07-06-2018, 07:50 PM
Looks like a flatbed fun time
