Our troubles of a vehicular nature were not over it seemed. You may recall that during our recent trip down south our Dodge Durango broke down twice...in two days. Well we got home and a week or two passed when suddenly we had another strange noise. A sort of grinding rattle that came and went from time to time. So on Saturday morning Lovely Man set about giving the car an inch by inch inspection in the hope that he could find, and cure, all it's little problems once and for all. He started with the wheels. Almost immediately he discovered that the passenger side wheel bearing was seized. This wasn't causing the grinding noise. No that, he discovered, was a plate holding the rear end of the exhaust which had come loose and simply needed a screw. So! There we were, noise cured, but now needing a new wheel bearing.
Today the new part arrived. Lovely Man disappeared out into the car port with trusty toolbox and shiny new part. I was summoned from my cleaning, typing and phoning from time to time to put my foot on the brake, or supply glasses of coke. Chippie came to observe the proceedings. Actually I don't think he was really interested in the mechanical expertise but rather he hoped that there might be some peanuts available. Apparently he ran circles around the tools and sat looking expectantly whilst Lovely Man struggled with wheel nuts and rusty metal. Well at least they kept each other company.
And so around 3 o'clock a cheerful announcement from the back door "It's fixed!" Great. Then "Ro...QUICK". Then again "RO! QUICK" this time with just a tinge of panic. As I looked out the back door all I could see was a Large Black Dodge trying it's best to get away down the slope with a rather red faced man in blue overalls holding on to the front bumper! And get this....in my panic I ran to get to the driver side....behind the car...it was going backwards down the hill?! Doh! Anyhow I managed to do a La Mans start style leap into the car and put the brake on! So, all's well that ends well. The Dodge, for the time being, lives to see another journey!
Blimey that sounds a bit hairy! The moral of this story is - next time go to a garage?! (sorry Lovely Man!)
ReplyDeleteLOL! He's a trained mechanic!!!! To be fair he did have the wheels chocked, as Luke suggested, but he took them away when he was finished not realising the damn thing had come out of 4WD rendering the 'park' gear useless! And he says the moral is....buy a landrover, they're much better than a *** Dodge!
ReplyDeleteHow's the exhibition going? Have fun xxxxx