Chuck B
Full Access Member
Took off Friday for weekend of fun up in Flagstaff. Loaded the trailer with bikes and headed out. That morning I was getting a bit of noise at idle so I popped the hood and appeared to be in the area of the tensioner. I figured if the bearing was going I'd probably be fine for the weekend but figured it was simply the belt beginning to get noisy after 88,000 miles. I had actually gone so far as to call my local Dodge dealer last week about availability of the belt and tensioner?....both at least 2 wks out. 
Bearing was really complaining as we started back to Phx. xcrossing fingers and rubbing bubba's belly wasnt good enough. Coming down the steep grade just north of Black Canyon the dash chimes and sure enough....zero alternator, no power steering, no AC or anything else. Of course traffic decided to come to a crawl so that added to the experience braking with no power accessories.
In just that few minutes temps were quickly heading into the red zone so I had no choice but to kill the engine and get her pulled over. With traffic now crawling we coasted along the emergency lane till the next exit. Engine had cooled enough to give a couple minutes of run time to get safely off the highway.
Phoned the wife to bring the Infinity which I had installed a hitch years ago just in case. Phoned tow truck and then waited. Both the driver and wife showed up at the same time. Driver knew exactly what he was doing getting the SRT up on the flat bed correctly. Forked over a nice tip to him along with an address to drop it off.
Got the trailer hitched up to the Infinity and off we went. Pretty funny....picture 3 adults, 2 dogs and full trunk of gear with trailer nearly as large as the car going down the highway....! Low rider for sure!!
Now, time to find a tensioner and belt. Too bad Dodge is worthless....
Bearing was really complaining as we started back to Phx. xcrossing fingers and rubbing bubba's belly wasnt good enough. Coming down the steep grade just north of Black Canyon the dash chimes and sure enough....zero alternator, no power steering, no AC or anything else. Of course traffic decided to come to a crawl so that added to the experience braking with no power accessories.
In just that few minutes temps were quickly heading into the red zone so I had no choice but to kill the engine and get her pulled over. With traffic now crawling we coasted along the emergency lane till the next exit. Engine had cooled enough to give a couple minutes of run time to get safely off the highway.
Phoned the wife to bring the Infinity which I had installed a hitch years ago just in case. Phoned tow truck and then waited. Both the driver and wife showed up at the same time. Driver knew exactly what he was doing getting the SRT up on the flat bed correctly. Forked over a nice tip to him along with an address to drop it off.
Got the trailer hitched up to the Infinity and off we went. Pretty funny....picture 3 adults, 2 dogs and full trunk of gear with trailer nearly as large as the car going down the highway....! Low rider for sure!!
Now, time to find a tensioner and belt. Too bad Dodge is worthless....
