[Charlie D.]

I got the new alternator on the car and got the engine compartment buttoned up yesterday. I started the engine and it idled nicely. The old alternator with the worn out bearing(s) had in deed been ¾ of the noise problem under the hood. My wife Pat and I took it for a short spin. As I have said, I haven’t driven a standard shift for 25 years or so. My first mistake was accidently putting it in 3rd gear instead of 1st. I got it moving forward but thought to myself something is not right. I shifted back in neutral and put a little pressure to the left side and it went easily into 1st.

We checked out the cruise control and it worked nicely. The electric sunroof opened and closed correctly. The windows rolled down without any noise. The map lights worked. Pat was surprised to find that the vanity mirror light comes on when the cover over the mirror is slid open. We took an old, winding road up, down and around the hills close to our home that we had not been on for years. It was quite fun. I had to constantly keep thinking about the next shift. OK, I’m in 4th going down this hill and I need to downshift to 3rd before we start climbing the next one. OK, that’s straight forward on the shifter. I was catching on to it before we got back home. The new brakes worked very well. The temperature gauge went up to the center of the scale and stayed there.

I am very excited about the initial checks for possible oil usage/leakage. There was no smoke coming from the tailpipe at all. When we got home it was parked in the driveway so any drips could be observed. Three hours later there was one drop of oil on the driveway. We moved it to the detached garage and today, 24 hours later, there were 2 drops of oil under the engine compartment. I checked the level on the dip stick and it was at the top mark.

The only disappointing part of the drive was some misfiring that showed up a couple of times. Both times were on a pretty stout acceleration in third gear. I never got it wound past 3,500rpm but as the car was pulling briskly up one of the hills it missed 3-4 beats in about 10 seconds. No missing during regular cruising at 2,000 to 2,400rpm. I did some research and it looks like it could be a coil/spark plug issue or maybe an injector issue.

We are going to get an alignment on the car and a couple of new tires and then drive it on a more extended trip. It is a fun vehicle. I thought the engine was revving pretty good but the redline is another 3,000rpm above where we had it. We may end up driving that twisty old road a little more often in the future.

Charlie D.