I have a truck. It's a 2008 Dodge Ram 1500 that I bought a couple of
years ago. It's the first truck I've ever owned and it's a lot of fun!
When I bought the truck I knew that I would have some issues with it
because it was 15+ years old. It had almost 200,000 on it when I
bought but had a new engine with less than 30,000 miles on it that had
been recently installed.
I love driving the truck because it's big and makes me feel like I can
do real stuff. I used it to tow my son's car to his place 6 hours
away, which was awesome. In the past this would have been a big
production or even an impossibility, but since I owned a truck it was
as simple as renting the dolly from a U-Haul place, getting the car's
front end on the dolly, and dragging it down the road. It was
exciting!
I understood when I bought the truck that I would be learning new
things with it. We've picniced in the bed of the truck, laid under the
stars in the field in the bed of the truck, carried people's stuff
from here to there in it, and all of that.
I also knew I'd have to learn to do some basic maintenance on it. In
the past I've always shied away from working on cars because with a
full-time shift work job, a wife, and four kids I would start and then
not be able to finish it. We didn't have an extra vehicle just sitting
around so when one broke down it had to be fixed quickly and
correctly, which for me meant paying someone to do the work. I also
tended to break things when I got frustrated so when I did try to
repair a car it cost me more money to fix what I broke in addition to
the original repair that was needed.
The kids are grown and we have an extra vehicle now. I also have much
more time on my hands and can actually start and finish a project
without having to lay it aside for very long once I start.
Recently my wife got in the truck to go to some friends' place for
dinner. After I started the truck it sounded weird, and felt different
when I started backing down the driveway. Power steering wasn't
working and it just sounded and felt wrong. As I slowly backed up I
noticed a long black belt laying on the ground in front of the truck.
My first thought was that someone had stolen a part off the bottom of
the truck and the belt had come off.
But that was not the case. The serpentine belt that transferred all
the spinning to the different parts under the hood had come off. It's
a "serpentine belt" and runs from the engine crankshaft to the air
conditioner, alternator, water cooler, and other parts. It's all at
the front of the engine.
I talked with a friend about it. He said this was normal and it was
probably the tension pulley, a one-bolt job. I had no idea what that
meant so I read more on the Internet and learned how to put a new belt
on. It seemed pretty straight-forward so I decided to take the
challenge and do it myself.
I bought the new belt and got to work. I had to jury-rig the ratchet
with a length of PVC pipe to get enough leverage on the tension pulley
to clamp it down in a postion where I could get the belt over the last
pulley, but I figured it out. When I started the motor and everything
worked it was so satisfying to see the belt doing it's thing!
I know it's a minor repair but for me this was a major accomplishment. Woohoo!
