Last night I said I'd drive to the movies [1].
Only I didn't end up driving. Jeff [2] did.
And therein lies a tale.
As I was pulling out of the driveway, turning the steering wheel suddenly felt a lot like pulling on a brick wall. Obviously the power steering was no longer power steering and there was no way I was driving to the theater (even if it was about two miles away). I was barely able to shove the [DELETED-brick wall-DELETED] steering wheel the other way to get the car back up into the driveway.
Anyway, today being The Game Day™, my friends and I huddled around Lake Lumina, looking into the engine block for reasons why the power steering wasn't.
“That doesn't look good,” said Tom. I looked to where he was pointing.
[This flywheel should be over this belt] [3]
[Actually, in the graphic above, where it says “flywheel” it should say “pully” as that's what the mechanic called it—Sean]
One of the many flywheels driven by the one large serpentine belt winding its way along the side of the engine had shifted a few inches away from the belt. “No, that doesn't look good,” I said.
I pushed on the [DELETED-flywheel-DELETED] pully, seeing if it would push back into position, but it wasn't budging, much like the steering wheel wasn't budging. After looking up the Blue Book value for my car [4], the consensus was I might want to drag Lake Lumina behind the shed (or in this case, it might be eaiser to drag the shed in front of Lake Lumina), put it out of its misery and start visiting some automobile dealerships.
Sigh.
[2] http://spinthecat.blogspot.com/
![[3] /boston/2010/12/19/flywheel.jpg](/gemini.conman.org/boston/2010/12/19/flywheel.jpg){kind=link}