October 29th: It was a seemingly normal Saturday evening, two days before Halloween. I did something which many people so on such a Saturday evening, and attended a Halloween Party. On my way home from said party, at around 2am Sunday morning, the alternator belt in the Audi started screeching and was having a hard time catching. This shouldn’t be happening as the belt and the tensioner bolt were all new. It was only a couple miles home, so I vowed to check and tighten belt in the morning. Then, a mere two blocks from home, the Battery light Came on, the Voltage check circuit lit up and the lights got dim. Uh-oh. I was already fighting a weird issue with the battery where it wouldn’t reliably hold a charge, leading to random hard/no start issues. As such, I didn’t know how long it could run only on battery power. As we’ve seen in various Star Trek episodes, I took the last resort of diverting power from Life Support, i.e. I shut down the ventilation fan, and the rear defroster. I made it the two blocks home back to Space Dock, with some extra dim headlights.

The next day, we took a family walk and found the alternator belt on the ground in front of a neighbors house, chewed up and crispy. Not a pretty sight.

Deciding that I couldn’t put that one back on the car, I found that I actually had a spare alternator belt in the garage, score! I also found that the brand new whacky looking adjustment bolt had gone missing.

Sadly, the threads which used to inhabit the ear of the alternator, where mostly missing as well. I found a nut and bolt to substitute, got the new belt tensioned up, then had to re-tension the AC compressor belt as well — The Audi has this very bizarre intermediate adjustment bar that goes between the two and influences the tension on both, for some reason. I haven’t looked up the proper procedure for tensioning all the belts as I’m sure its an irritating 15 step process that involves at least two special tools. I have a 13 mm socket and a long screwdriver — good enough.

October 30th: With a repaired car, we made a trip to South Seattle to an architectural thrift shop, to pickup some period correct light fixtures for the Mid-century house we currently call home as well a matching door for one of the bedrooms — and yes the Audi can fit an entire door in the back with the seats down. We get to the place, a good 35 minute drive and find what we need. I go to get the Audi to pull it into a loading bay and — there’s not enough juice in the battery to start the car (again). Thankfully, Lisa bought a little booster box a couple weeks back when this started happening intermittently. With the car started, I pulled it around, left it running, we loaded it up and took off for home.

About 1/2 way home, I got a scary looking alert in the Check Module. A temperature symbol with a big red triangle. The second time in as many days, the self-diagnostics of the car alerted me to something. I interpreted this symbol, as overheat warning…yet the actual temp gauge was normal. We were cooking at about 70 mph, so I slowed down and the warning went off. Sped up, warning on, slow down, off. The temp gauge was steady the entire time. As the gauge and the check circuit are driven by two different sensors, I figured one was either marginal or just straight up lying to me. We made it home without incident, modulo the need to pickup the kids from school on the way without room for them, due to the bedroom door, but that side adventure doesn’t really come into it.

November 1st: Lisa comes home from her class and says, “When I shut the Jeep off, there was a weird gurgling sound. Also when I was getting gas it seemed like there was a of steam coming off the hood, but it was also raining, so wasn’t sure.” I was getting over a cold, so was in no shape to do much about at the moment.

November 2nd: Feeling myself again, before running the kids to school, I popped the hood on the Jeep. A cracked radiator — well, this car ain’t going NO WHERE.

So, I hopped in the Audi, and miraculously it started without the booster box, however the temp warning alert in the check module went off immediately. Okay, everything is stone cold, something doesn’t make sense. On a hunch, I though that maybe the symbol was actually a poor representation for a low coolant level warning, so dropped some water in the reservoir, light went off. Fine, onward, were almost late for school.

It turns out the local NAPA had a radiator and hose kit in stock for the Jeep. Lisa took the Rx-7 to pick it up, then continued on some other errands including taking one of the kids to an appointment on the East Side. Half way there the phone rings, “I’m on the 520 bridge and all the warning lights just came on in the car.”

It was at this point, we figured we’re under a curse this week or something. I said as long as the gauges look good, continue on the to appointment. No reason to stop the car unless the temp gauge spikes.

After she sent me a picture of the dash, I noted that the volt meter was REALLY low. I advised to do as I had done a few days earlier with the other car, “Okay, drive home with no headlight, defrosters, etc — I think you’re running on battery power only. It’ll probably be okay.” I wasn’t as worried as there are no real electronics in the Rx-7 to power, just the ignition coil.

Good News: It was, she made it home, volt meter showing about 10 volts. The two of did the radiator swap on the Jeep later in the afternoon in record time, 90 minutes start to finish!

It was a completely uneventful procedure and was done Just in time for her to go grab the kids form school.

After she left, I popped the hood on the Rx-7.

Yep, that’s the alternator belt, no longer very belt-like, laying across the top of the engine. At least diagnosis was easy.

In 25 years and probably close to million miles worth of driving I’ve never lost or broke a belt — and here we lost two within 5 days.

November 5th: I brought the brand new battery for the Audi back to the store to for a warranty replacement. It’s only 6 months old and it just won’t hold a charge right. The car produces a solid 13 volts regardless of how many electrical accessories you turn on, hence it’s not the car. I knew I was in trouble at the store as soon as they brought out their battery tester. It is, of course, one of those new fangled electronic units, which perform a “Simulated Load Test”. We had a lot of issues with these when I worked at the BMW shop. It turns out that you can have a Lead Acid battery that holds a surface charge for a little while, but then will experience a voltage drop and doesn’t have the Amperage it needs to actually start the car, but that surface charge will fool the simulate load tester.

Of course, the test procedure for these is, Step 1: Charge battery. Step 2: perform the simulated load test. In the old days, we had a test machine that would induce a true load on the battery, and you could see how it would recovery from a load — or not. Anyway, not surprisingly, after the parts store insisted on charging the battery for two hours before testing….it passed!

I lamented to the guy how we used to get this all the time in the BMW shop and relayed the following experience. That we used to see the same symptoms, battery randomly doesn’t have enough juice to start the car. We’d charge it, we’d do a draw test to be sure there were no parasitic drains, and the new (at the time) tester would always pass the battery. And the customers would always come back, pissed off because their car didn’t start the next morning. He swapped the battery, thanks man!

The part I didn’t tell him, is that in the shop, I figured out how to “cheat the test” in order to get BMW to pay for a new battery. I’d turn on a bunch of accessories, then run the “Simulated Load Test”. By pulling a little bit of that sweet sweet surface charge off the battery, it was enough to get it to fail. I believe it’s been long enough, that information is no longer actionable in a court of law.

Anyway, we’ll see what the coming week brings with regards to the Audi’s battery.

One Week Recap:
2 – Alternator Belts
2 – Low coolant situations
1 – Blown radiator
? – Random no starts
1 – New Battery

That’s quite enough for me for a while.

Update: A week later, and the intermittent no-start in the Audi seems solved. The starter spins the engine with gusto every morning!

Fast forward to Summer 2023 and it’s everyone’s favorite family car. My children have threatened to disown me should I ever sell it. We take it camping, we take it up forest service roads, skiing, we’ve even towed cars with it. It’s the do everything car for us.

All this doing, has taken a bit of toll, as we’ve now got 195,000 miles on the odometer. Up to this point, it’s required shockingly little in the way of repairs. A couple sets of front sway-bar end links (a consumable on these cars), a couple of U-joints here and there, and general maintenance. That is until spring of this year.

I was at a friend’s house for a Retro Computing Event, and had to move the Jeep to let someone else out of the driveway. Upon walking past the spot where the Jeep had just been parked, I saw a nice little puddle of goo on the ground where back end of the Jeep was sitting. I stooped, I touched, I sniffed. Yep, gear oil…and it didn’t look great. You never want a puddle of oil from your car to glisten in the sun with metallic flakes. Not Good.

Upon getting home, I found that the input shaft seal for the rear differential and both axle end seals had let loose and the rear differential was losing it’s life-blood a few drops at a time. I figured I’d top things up and make a plan of action. With the input shaft seal gone, it was going to take a little doing, but I was mostly feeling up for it. So, I topped up the fluid. Except it wasn’t a “top up” It was basically a full fill. It took over a quart — the total oil capacity is only about a quart and half. NOT GOOD. But, with oil in the diff I vowed to keep a close eye on it.

Two days later Lisa comes home, “The Jeep is making a noise”. VERY NOT GOOD.

So, I take it for a test drive and sure enough — there’s a noise. It sounds a bit like a baseball card in the spoke of a bicycle wheel. Mostly on deceleration, a bit during coasting, but quiet under acceleration. In a fit of total denial, I started checking all the u-joints, even rebuilt the rear driveshaft to no effect.

Eventually, I did what I should have done in the first place. I got the Jeep up on jack stands, all four wheel off the ground, put it in gear with the engine running, and crawled under with a stethoscope. Clear as day, with the scope on the differential housing where the driveshaft attaches, I heard it “click click click click click”. Conclusion: we ran it dry and spun a bearing. This means it needs a full tear down. In order to get to that bearing, everything else need to come apart.

So, started asking around the local Jeep community for who they’d recommend for a re-build. I wanted it done right and to never have to worry about it, as I intend to see 395,000 miles on this rig someday. Ronin Ring and Pinion in Marysville, WA came highly recommended. I called, got an estimate (sight unseen, which I appreciated) and made an appointment. Turns out when all you do is differentials, a rebuild on a D44 out of a Jeep is a almost a standard service.

So, once nice sunny Summer afternoon, we topped up the tank and drove the Jeep the 40 minutes North to drop the Jeep off at the guy’s shop, handed over the keys and left. One might think that this is the end of the story and one would be mistaken. This adventure is just barely getting started here.

20 minutes later the phone rings. “Your Jeep wont’ start — is there a trick to it or something?”

Sigh. So we head back to the shop. Brian suggests the fuel pump has pumped it’s last, as the engine did spring to life for a second, died, then nothing. Also, with the high mileage, its a failure mode he’s seen on these many times. Now, the biggest issue with taking it to a specialty shop, is that he’s not setup for (and has no interest in) repairs of the more general type — such as a fuel pump. AAA was called and we made it home on the end of a hook.

A simple diagnostic checklist for a car that wont run is as follows:
An engine needs three things to run:
1) Compression
2) Spark
3) Fuel
Bonus) All those things need to happen in a properly coordinated fashion.

I immediately ruled out a compression issue, as when cranking it didn’t sound like an engine with no compression. If you’ve ever heard a car start, you know the pulsing row-row-row-vroooom! The “row-row-row” bits are the pistons compressing the air/fuel mixture. An engine with no compression just makes a smooth whirring sound.

To rule out a spark issue, I removed the intake tube off the manifold, squirted a little bit of starter fluid (also known as “ether”) in the intake, cranked it, and it sprung to life for a second as the ether burnt off. Great, fuel delivery issue confirmed. Mechaicjay’s First Maxim: If it runs on ether, it’ll run on fuel.

To confirm a fuel pump issue, I tested the relays and fuses which supply power to the pump and there was no issue there. Given the sudden nature of the issue, the mileage involved and the above diagnostic results, it pretty well confirmed to me that the pump had simply burned out.

Helpfully, to replace the fuel pump in the Jeep (like most modern cars), it’s a tank out procedure. Now, do you remember above, when I said we’d topped up the tank before bringing to the axle shop? Yep. I needed to drop a tank full of 18 gallons of gasoline. I’d also spoken with Brian at Ronin Ring and Pinon and we decided I would pull the axle myself and bring it to him as a carry-out job. The timing of this would out well, as he would able to rebuild the axle while I did the fuel pump. Also, having the axle out of the way, gave me a lot more room to work with the gas tank.

Axle removal was uneventful (just heavy), dropping the tank, however, turned out to be a bit of an adventure. The tank on this jeep is a plastic tank, which sits in a heavy metal cradle (which Jeep calls a skid plate). The skid plate bolts up into the frame and cross members under the jeep. Thanks to a number of winters spent in the North East, every bolt was seized with rust to the point where I needed to CUT THEM OUT. Friends, there are few things in this world I enjoy more than showering a giant bucket full of gasoline, suspended above my head with a stream of sparks from a cutting wheel.

As it turned out, this was process went relative smoothly, without any explody parts, as is evidenced by the fact that I’m typing this and not recovering in the burn ward. With the tank no longer bolted in, and held in place with a couple floor jacks, I was able to lower it gently, removing the fuel and electrical connections. I then needed to scoot the full tank out from under the Jeep, and was able to lift it up on a makeshift platform, to then start siphoning the fuel out of it into totally EPA approved containers.

Armed with a new pump and new bolts, I was ready to put everything back together.

I figured I’d take the plastic tank out of the steel cradle to clean out any debris and to give the the underside a good scrub. It was thick with caked on grease as the bad rear-end seal had ended up coating the skid plate. As I was scraping some rust scale, my screw driver when right through the side of the plate….in multiple places.

Great, in it for a new skid plate as well. I managed to find a great deal on a stock replacement from amazon, as “refurbished return”, it looked brand new to me when it arrived, so I was super stoked to have saved the $70 or whatever.

Armed, now with a new pump, bolts AND skid plate, I started putting everything back together, which was completely uneventful and smooth, just took a couple hours. Once back together, I refilled the tank from the totally EPA approved storage containers, it fired right up — SUCCESS!

Of course, while all this was going on, I’d heard from Brian and his findings from the Axle tear down. It was of course, the worst case scenario. The only reusable things were the housing and axle shafts. It turns out that the carrier for the limited slip clutch pack had grenaded and were just ping-ponging around inside the axle, breaking the teeth off gears and causing general mechanical mayhem. We had been planning to simply rebuild the factory LSD, but as the carrier was trashed, it was a whole new unit to the tune of an additional $700 OUCH.

Regardless, once getting the axle back here it just was waiting to go back in once the tank was reinstalled.

Installation of the azle was similarly uneventful and straightforward, which was also gratifying.

So, now at 195K miles, we’re back on the road with a new fuel pump, skid plate, tank straps, mounting hardware, and a rebuilt rear-end with new ring and pinion gears, spider gears and Limited Slip unit. Hopefully, I won’t need to touch anything else on the back end for a few years!