Battery Revolt, Take Two

Last week when my mom's car battery and my truck's battery were both dead on the same day, I had hoped that mine was only in need of a jump, so I didn't get a new one that day. It did hold enough of a charge to start the next day, but it was once again dead by Saturday morning. Finally giving up the fight, I decided to change my battery this afternoon because, apparently, Thursday has become battery changing day around here. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the clamps around the towers came off much easier than when I had to change my mom's battery last week (serious, for all the crap I gave the directions on the back of the package, those corrosion preventors really work). Also, I found the right size ratchet right away and the bolt that was holding the battery in place seemed to start to come off without much trouble. "This is going very well!" I thought quietly to myself. That, as you could imagine, was a mistake because right after I thought that, the bolt snapped. It didn't even do me the courtesy of snapping in the middle and thus giving me enough of a target to grab onto. Instead it snapped just above the base surface that the battery sat on, so I couldn't even try to grab and turn it with pliers.

For those of you who have never tried to remove a broken bolt, it sucks. It's supposed to work like this: use a smaller drill bit to make a hole in the broken bolt, use a square bit to grip in the hole and slowly back the bolt out. It's a great idea in principle... until I quickly broke the two smallest bits. You see, we have one of those kits specifically made to remove broken bolts and screws, only, like most things in life, the one we have is not Rakauskas-grade. Clearly, it was meant to be operated only by those with a gentler touch. It was at this point I had to reverse field and tried to go through the bolt. Going up a couple sizes I was able to basically get the remainder of the bolt to be at least even with the surface, but from there the drill started to run out of juice. The only good news was that the down-time while waiting for the battery to re-charge was that I was able to really clean inside my engine, which is really only important to me. [Sidebar: As I was staring at the engine it occurred to me today that overall I've actually been very lucky with this car engine-wise. In the three years I have owned it I have never had to add any washer fluid, coolant or oil until today. When you consider how often I was checking the oil in my last truck, that fact astounds me.]

I then decided to just drill a new hole and find a new bolt, one task which was easier than the other. I actually found two bolts to use, but drilling the hole was a bit of an issue. I ended up putting a new hole on both sides of the old bolt, both of which were just off enough that securing the old battery to the base could not be the easy process that it should have been. But, the new battery eventually found its way in and while I still have to reset all my radio stations and the clock, at least it's all good for the time being. Just know that I am now on a deadline with this car, which expires when this battery does. Because once that battery goes it is going to be a hell of a problem to get back out.