Wow wow we wow!
What a weekend.
What was supposed to be a stress-free event at the Light the Night walk turned into a semi-disaster!
Mom had her shit going on with moving out of that apartment. Christopher had to help her move so... no one was apparently coming to the walk with me. I understand Crit was tired and I can't be selfish and hold it against him. I really wanted to see him though and spend time with Mom. Johnny still wanted to go so I went and picked his lil butt up. We decided to get back to the house first since I forgot my glasses and it was getting dark and John needed to change into his LTN shirt I gave him for the walk. If we had not decided to head back home... we probably would've been FUCKED. After leaving his Dad's house I kept hearing a strange noise from my tire when I turned. Didn't think much of it at the time.
After getting off of 95 and getting to the block I use to get to my house (2 minute or so walk from the condo) i turned onto the street and "RATTLE SCREECH CLONK SCRAAACH BONK RATTLE RATTLE CLANK!"
WTF!?
I immediately went to pull over and the entire car stopped going! Anytime I put it into gear those noises would once again haunt my Honda. Park, Neutral, Drive, Reverse- each offered the same grinding, clanking sound. My first thought? "Did I blow a tire?!" Second thought "No.. no. THE TRANSMISSION IS DEAD! NO!"
Now...I've heard enough things about getting our transmission fixed. Once it breaks and you're able to dish out the money to fix it, the car is never the same. This worried me knowing how Dad will react. He JUST fixed Joe's differential LAST WEEK. I was unable to go to the event after being so excited to show off my little brother and have him meet my co-workers. We were both a little disappointed. Anyways, we left the car and walked to the condo to give Dad the bad news. Of course... he flipped out as if I did this intentionally. We'll skip the entire bit of him giving me crude remarks. I made the evening a bit better by spending the night around Johnny (even though I kept falling asleep) and Joe and I bought him Skyrim.
Morning comes and I know I had to get Johnny back to his Dad's by 2 (He has to get ready for school. Apparently it takes hours to do this?). Mechanic arrives at 8:30am with Dad and the moment he hears the rattling, he came to an immediate conclusion.
Trans-axle.
What is a trans-axle you say? Allow me, Mellanie to show you!
This above is a CT Joint that is apart of a Trans-axle.
This is the entire trans-axle and where it is located on a car.
Now, looking back to the first picture...
Upon removing it from my car it was completely broken open. See those metal balls? There's about 6 of them in there. I had 1 in mine. I guess the piece got erroded and eventually the seal broke apart and gave way- allowing all the pieces to fall out while I was driving. The metal ball was probably the loose piece that I heard clanking around. This is supposedly a big problem in Honda Accords and thus it was easy to fix, cheap to buy and quick to replace. It took pretty much an hour to do in my parking lot by the mechanic. He also taught me a few things to keep in mind with the car so.. that's good.
I'm still quite nervous since I have to drive the car to Vero Beach this coming weekend for the Children's Theatre Event. VERY nervous actually. I'm going to let Dad drive it after I stop at Tates. I don't want the other one to bust or something. He said we got lucky and there's nothing to be scared about. The car really does run great and I don't want to see it break down. It's ugly now, but... it's stayed true to me. I felt this way about the Blazer too though. LOL!
SIGH. I made the best of my weekend I guess. Glad I got to be with Johnny Roo.
I need that checkbook from the HSA so I can pay off my bills, catch up and buy my lovely iphone. THEN this weekend I will at least have $300 coming in from the event to give myself even more of a boost!