Thirty-five years of wear and tear, deterioration, and lack of proper maintenance have taken their toll on one tough engine. We took Stella out on the highway a couple of weeks back and started puffing white smoke from beneath the hood. We killed the motor immediately, but the damage had been done, as you can see from these pictures. The engine cracked impressively in three separate places, two of which you can see in the first and second picture and a third time in the bottom picture. It looks like we might have slipped a rod... maybe blown a head gasket first which put too much stress on the engine. Whatever the cause, "catastrophic internal failure" is what followed. We got her safely to the side of the road and watched helplessly as all her vital fluids flowed in a steady stream onto the pavement below. I was scared and sad, and I felt my heart in my throat while the tow man attached heavy, rusty chains to her tires and pulled her slowly up onto the flatbed and off the road.
We considered cutting our losses, but after almost four decades, I couldn't let myself be the one to put this beautiful machine into the grave. I will admit this--Stella makes me do crazy things. The fact that I spent "house money" to buy her is enough proof of that, so there's no point in denying it. So a brand new engine is en route to us even as I type this. It's due to arrive on Monday, and we found a great mechanic who ensured us that three days later we'd have our girl back and better than ever. I can't wait to hear that engine grumble back to life!
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