Oh Boy! What a &%#$@ Monday....

[herb101]

I hate Mondays....
(long rant coming with a little on topic topping)......

Started at about 7:30 am - turned the key and nothing...Blazer would not start AGAIN. Runs fine, but dies and drains the battery when it sits. SO.....

I take the Jeep to work. Annoying vibration and the bikini is peeling off of the windshield channel AGAIN. Get done with my first client and I'm on the way to the next - all the way across town, so I take I10 - right through the construction zone (what in San Antonio is not a construction zone?). Just past the choked-down barricades the vibration worsens and I feel the flat front tire (I think - and I wish!) as the Jeep dips down about 6 inches in the front. I look for a place to pull over and find none, so I park it in an entrance ramp median between the ramp and the freeway. I back it up a bit to give me more safe room to work on the tire (no spare or jack BTW) and BOOM - the front drops another foot as the driver side front tire falls off!!! Not all the way off, but the Jeep is now draging the rotor while the tire supports most of the body way through the fender!

Fast forward to the two tow-services and the 7 hour wait (GRRRRRRR!!!!!) to have the Jeep home - I get a look at the wheel....lug holes are elongated and the perfectly good, nearly new Pro Comp 35" Mud Terrain has had the rubber scooped out down to the cords around the inner rim flange! &^$#%

So, anyway - I upgraded the alternator on the Blazer to a mid 90's F-Body 140A unit with internal regulator. Short seems to have been in the old alternator and now everything works - my lights are brighter, my wipers are no longer speed sensitive variable speed, the radio works better, I have dash lights now and it fires up FAST.

I need to work on less destructive motivation to get Blazer upgrades done.....

Herb