This is getting ridiculous...

Well, I went out on Saturday morning and bought myself an alternator for Leonard.

I brought it home, and called dad to help me put it in. He didn't answer because he was out chopping something up with the chainsaw. I called mom, and it wasn't long before my neighbor was coming up over the lawn asking me what I needed help with. I told him I was replacing the alternator. He came over, took a look, and said "Lemme go get ma tools."

So a couple of hours later, everything was finished. I participated by handing over tools, and holding onto screws/bolts. I wanted to tell Chad that I was so good at it, I didn't even get my hands dirty. But I couldn't take that much credit, so I told him our neighbor did it for me.

We got the alternator put in, plugged in and tightened down. We went to start up the car, and nothing happened. However, on Monday we went out and double-checked everything, tightened everything again, and this time it WORKED!!!

YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!

Leonard lives to see another day.

However, in an unfair turn of events, Chad's car won't start.
He drove to work, and when he got in it to come home for lunch, it wouldn't start. It was Leonard to the rescue. We got over there, jumped the van (which Chad refers to as Germaine - some reference to one of the Jackson 5 and his flattop) and drove it home. He turned it off in the driveway, and couldn't start it again.
So there Germaine sits.

We're going to try cleaning off the battery terminals when Chad gets home from work later tonight. Since we just bought the battery in Jan 09 (when it died at Aunt Karen's during the infamous Idaho Christmas Expedition), we're hoping it's just a bad connection. So help me if it's the alternator. It would not be NEARLY as quick or easy to fix as it was on the Subaru. You can't even see it when you look in the engine compartment.

So - that's the update from here. Someone do a rain dance or something to appease the Gods for us.