08 July 2020

No Plan Survives the First Shot: Or, as it turns out, the first shredded V-belt! It finally happened, I ended up on the side of the road. Here's how today went, and how it was (despite the breakdown) the best day yet!

Leaving from La Crosse, Wisconsin, Google Maps flashed up this screen about 10 minutes into the drive.

It looked like smooth, easy sailing. If you're curious, look up I-90 on a map; you can trace it with a straight-edge. Factoring in gas stops, we figured we would make it to Badlands National Park by 6:00, more than enough time to set up a campsite and enjoy the views. But the Cougar had other ideas...

About 1 hour into our drive, I noticed that the air conditioning had stopped blowing cold. Foolishly, I decided not to pull over because I was convinced that this was the result of a leaking system. See, only a day before I left I discovered that my system had a giant leak. Troubleshooting revealed that I had ripped an o-ring on install. I feared that I had made another mistake during the installation that had resulted in a slow leak that had finally leaked out enough R-134a over the last week to trip the low-pressure cutoff switch. Since I figured there was nothing I could do about it, and the leak wouldn't cause any further issues, I elected not to have us pull over. 

Had we pulled over, I would have discovered that there was no leak.

First, there was this picture...

A sudden (and loud!) engine speed smacking sent us diving for the side of the road. Once we lifted up the hood, we found the AC/PS V-belt wrapped around the fan clutch, and the fan shroud in pieces. The belt came off the pulleys and bounced around until it finally caught the fan in the right (wrong) way to shred it and destroy the shroud. 

So we pulled the shroud out, consigned ourselves to no AC or power steering until we reached the next auto parts store, and pulled back onto the highway.

Then this happened.

Suddenly, the alternator belt was gone and the top radiator hose had a nice gash in it. Temps that shot from our normal range of 205-215, to almost 250 in about 3 minutes were a definite sign that something wasn't right... And so was the steam leaving the hood a the side of the road. The first broken belt must have damaged the alternator belt, and I must have missed it on my hasty 'don't want to get hit by a semi' roadside inspection for damage. Stuck on the side of the road with no spare hose (stupid) and no spare belts (stupid stupid stupid), AAA came to the rescue! Luckily for us, we were only 14 miles outside of Worthington, MN, a pretty substantial town with several auto parts stores, including and O'Riley's that had the radiator hose in stock! We we had our very kind (and talkative) flatbed driver drop us off right in the O'Riley's parking lot, Roadkill style, and set to work. 

It was then that we realized that the cause of the belt loss was the AC compressor: all its mounting bolts were loose! They must have rattled loose over the last few days, causing the compressor to float in and out of alignment and eventually throw the belt. So I took another walk into O'Riley's, picked up some blue loctite, and made sure that I won't run into that issue again. Just to be safe, belt tightness and compressor wiggle-check has been added to the 'every-gas-stop' checklist to prevent this from happening in the future. 

After also realizing that my fan clutch had been damaged, and was now slightly wobbly, and remembering the water pump gasket havoc that the original wobbly fan clutch (on the car when I bought it, and a destroyer of 2 gaskets) had caused, we nursed the car to the nearest fan clutch that we could find, which was in Sioux Falls, SD, about an hour away. I kept the RPMs below 2500, and kept my eyes glued to the temp gauge for any sign of the rising temperatures that a compromised water pump gasket would inevitably bring. Luckily, we made it with no issues and installed the new clutch. 

At this point, we realized that the earliest we would be able to get to Badlands was 11:00pm, so camping wasn't going to work. So we booked a room in Pierre, SD, and started blasting down I-90 again. And right outside the driver's window was a massive storm trying to chase us down. 

As if we needed more motivation to put the pedal down after sitting still in a parking lot for several hours!

    And in a surprise twist, that drive was amazing. Chasing one of the most gorgeous sunsets and beautiful array of clouds I have ever seen while outrunning a massive thunderstorm in my Cougar was simply an awesome experience; awesome as in 'inspiring awe in a person.' I'll include the pictures I took out the windows, but they can't replicate the feeling. For most of that drive, the landscape was completely flat. But for some reason, it felt like we were on top of the world. Seeing trucks and car come rise up from the horizon, or disappear behind you gave me the very real sense that we are indeed on a planet, a giant sphere floating in space. And there I was, smashing across it with an American V8 pulling me along. It was incredible. That road, at that time, in that car, was exactly what I wanted to experience on this trip. Without the breakdown earlier in the day, we would have been on that road over 4 hours earlier, and have missed that amazing experience. Everything really does seem to happen for a reason.

Poetic delusions aside, one of the best parts about a roadtrip is that you can adjust the plans as necessary. So instead of camping at Badlands tonight, as was originally planed, we are going to be camping there tomorrow night. I hope that I'll have some great star trails and/or Milky Way pictures to share with you after that!

Thanks for Reading!

Ken