Not sure you'd feel it shifting into park, but if it is engaged the vehicle shouldn't roll.

It looks like it just slid down the hill. The angle of that hill looks steep enough that if the parking pin actually broke it would've kept rolling.

:dunno:

I would have like to see it happen so I would know if the wheels were turning or it just slid.

But I agree there's definitely enough angle that it would have plowed right through Karen's fence.

I'm assuming that if the parking pin broke it would basically be the same thing as it being in neutral?

Today's episode of Check Engine Light has been brought to you by misfires in cylinder 6.

Yup, another CEL, sigh

Over the last few weeks I've addressed misfires on 3 separate occasions.

This time around it popped up after almost 2 weeks of driving around warning free.

I smashed on the gas just for fun because I rarely go over 30 mph and BAM orange light.

Currently on day 2 of new coil and dare I say it's running better than ever?

New issues I found:

Windshield washer doesn't work. Checked the fuses and they were all fine so I'll swap out the pump with a spare I have.

Interesting/Annoying thing I've noticed about the new fan clutch. During startup it spins the fan for a short distance before it disengages. The colder it is the longer it takes. This is probably due to the fact that it's an Amazon clutch but after that it seems to work ok. Mind you I haven't driven Swampy far or long at all.

not too smooth sailing so far...

fan clutch has been bugging me for a long time, an OEM Behr unit solved it, thoug it sounds yours might be ok. The colder oil might need a bit longer to get spun out of the viscous clutch at low outside temperatures.

So far it looks like once it's warmed up it behaves like a normal fan clutch but the first few hundred feet it definitely sounds like a giant leaf blower

haha oh yes I know that feeling! Mine used to keep doing that as soon as the engine was up to temperature, and for the first few hundred yards from startup too....

Yay! The windshield washer is working again after I swapped it out with a spare I had and I only spilled half a gallon of fluid while I fumbled trying to get the thing in the hole.

I know it's been a while but all I was trying to do is get a solid victory under my belt before I posted something, but I see now that was selfish of me.

That's not what the people want! We want to watch from a safe distance and laugh to ourselves at the other guy's misfortune knowing full well our turn to wrench is probably lurking around the corner.

So apologies for holding out on everyone...just in case anyone happed to be wondering what happened to Swampy let's get caught up


Spoiler alert...WE RIDE!!



It was a particularly cold week around Christmas last year and just as I happened to be pulling up to the job site I got some check engine lights and heavy misfing. Normally the CEL is a steady fixture on my hooptie fleet but Swampy wasn't part of that club so I was definitely curious what it could be.

(My daily commute at the time was 2-3 miles so barely enough for the car to get warm)

As I was bringing in my tools I noticed dripping coming from under the engine, but not the usual driving through winter weather drips, darker and had a little sheen to it. I'm sure it's nothing, right?

Popped the hood and I'm watching oil drip all over the place from what looks like the top of the valve cover and since there's not much I can do about it right now, I ignore it and get to work.

Off the top of my head I'm thinking maybe the CCV is clogged?? but still not much I can do about it on the spot so after work I go to investigate.

The oil level is well in between the marks on the dip stick... I'm going to start the engine and see what happens.

Starts and idles "fine" so I hurry home and about half way there the misfiring started again.

As I'm watching the oil dripping on the snow covered driveway in the -15 C weather I make an executive decision.

Up to this point Swampy has been a real pain in the ass and with the weather we were having there was no way I'd be doing any outdoor wrenching let alone crawling under the car to investigate so I'm letting her bleed out and sit for the winter.

A couple months go by and as things are starting to thaw out I was walking past Swampy and happened to notice the sunroof drains were bent again. Yay!

Now if anyone remembers Swampy kind of sort of got its name from the fact that it spent a lot of time in Florida and it had gallons of water sloshing around the interior due to bent sunroof drains....well guess what???

IT HAPPENED AGAIN!!!

(Apologies for the lack of pictures along the way but some of these steps we've done already, some I forgot to photograph and I got a new phone and computer in the last year so things are a little scattered.)

I straightened out the drains and seeing as how everything was frozen solid still I waved my fist angrily and let it be for now.

Several weeks later when it was warm enough to go through the drying process I took a peek under the carpet and guess who's back? Our friend rust :(

So once again (but a little more half ass) I dried out the carpet, sanded as much rust as I could get to and spray painted everything again.

You know when a certain amount of time goes by and you forget why things were done a certain way? You'll notice the first time around I painted with a brush and this time it was a spray can. Seems like I forgot all about the overspray as it settled over the interior of the car :doh:

Under the hood things didn't look horrible. There were some traces of the oil that was leaking but it wasn't continuously dripping the whole time it was parked which was a pleasant surprise.

Started up the engine and no oil was spewing out which left me scratching my head but whatever. I'll take that as a good sign for now.

Let's try to get this thing moving and see what a couple laps around the block will awaken.

First stop sign I got to quickly reminded me how shitty the brakes are compared to the wife's X5 but I did suck in all kinds of air and wasn't able to get it all bled out so that's not really a surprise.

After a couple laps around the block I return to the driveway and I'm looking under the hood with Swampy running and could smell something and saw a little smoke.

Now I'm not overly concerned about the smoke because oil got everywhere so I figured it was just burning off but the smell wasn't oil. You know the smell...that distinct electrical wiring burning smell.

As I'm looking around I notice a bit larger concentration of smoke coming around the alternator side of the engine and usually it's the exhaust side that does most of the burning in my experience.

Shut swampy down but looking around I couldn't see anything obviously wrong.

I let it sit for a couple hours with the hood open to air things out before I tried it again but when I did, that very distinct electrical wiring smell and faint smoke in the general area of the alternator were back.

I had another alternator on my e46 parts car so I pulled that but the bearing was already squeaking slightly. Since I haven't been to the pic n pull yard in a while let's go see if we can't score a little newer alternator shall we?

Most of the cars at the pic n pull yard live with their hoods open so it doesn't take long before you can see the surface rust building up on things from getting rained on but this alternator I found was basically new. Still shiny!


https://i.imgur.com/UlYDS9g.jpg


SCORE!

Bearing smooth as butter and still had the stickers legible. I'm guessing it might not even be a year old.

While I was there I also came across a set of heated rear seats so I snagged those too. We'll get to those shortly.

After pulling out the old alternator a quick inspection reveals the bearing will barely turn by hand so I'm not sure if the smoke was coming from the heat building up from the bearing, the belt possibly slipping (Although there was no squeaking) or if there was a failure in the electronics. Either way it was pooched.

Almost new alternator installed, quick boot around the neighborhood and no more electrical burning smell :thumbup: