(this isn’t my Jeep…but it looks like it..we live out in the country….deep in the woods…so this isn’t my mail Jeep…just one that looks like it. I’m just sayin’)

My old Jeep Cherokee  was making a strange noise on the route yesterday.

I spent a lot of the day turning off the audio book radio and listening to the engine noises.

I think it’s a sign that you’re used to driving old cars (or doing all your work yourself) that you get pretty tuned in to every strange noise (or smell) that comes from under the hood.

Anyway…when I finished up the route,  I popped the hood again…and listened.  The engine sounded like a bunch of ball bearings in a coffee can.

What The Heck?  WTH.

So…I closed the hood and started home. It was really more like a bunch of fairly quiet ball bearings in a small coffee can, anyway.

How bad could that be, right?

When that’s your option, you sometimes have good luck just ignoring it all. (Professional mechanics love that attitude).

When I got home, the noise had stopped!

“I wonder what that noise was?!”, I wondered.  Hmmmmm….I wonder.

It turns out it was the idler tensioner pulley…a little pulley that the serpentine belt snakes around…the one under the alternator.  It had finally exploded (don’t know where all the bearings went) and was just flopping around on the bolt.

Sometimes, when things suddenly quiet down, it’s not a good thing.

So I started calling around…and found one at a local parts store….and drove in (in the minivan) and got it.  I thought it might be nice to have it back up and running with the long weekend ahead of me.

Just get it fixed and I wouldn’t have to worry about it.

Well….the part wouldn’t fit.  Like most other repairs I’ve done on the Jeep, I’m finding that because it’s a RHD there are occasionally some weird issues that you wouldn’t expect.

Like the master window control switch…if it’s for a “normal” jeep it’s around 70 dollars.  If the switch is for my Jeep, it’s around 240 dollars…just because it’s on the “wrong” side of the car.

Supply and Demand, Supply and Demand.

This is a really long-winded way of saying that I’m going to have to try and hunt down the correct part on Monday….so my plan of getting it fixed early in the weekend isn’t going to come together like I hoped….and…it’s going to be a part I have to get from the dealer.

Yipes.

If I can get the part at all.

But what the heck…I listen to audio books about possibility thinking all day on the route…6 days a week…every week.

Maybe I don’t even need that part?