My namesake, Hunter Stanley Harrington, a.k.a "Butch" has been exonerated of all charges that have been mentally conceived by myself. Very early last spring, he was riding shotgun with me, typical of him he was jabbering away and had several toy cars with him. I stopped by the video store to do a quick errand and he chose to remain in the truck and play with his cars. I was absent for less than five minutes.
Upon my return, I started the truck and turned on the heater, only to hear a loud and obnoxious clanking sound coming from the heater. At the time, I noticed that the vents on his side of the truck were open, my thoughts was that he had put one of his cars through the vent and it fell into the fan. He plead his innocence, but it is tough to put one over on Grandpa. Throughout the summer, every time I turned on the heater or defroster, this unbearable "clanking" noise could be heard as if something was rolling around inside the fan compartment. In late summer, the noise stopped, I then assumed that the fan finally ate the little car and all would be well, except, I was getting very little heat and no noise from the heater.
With the onslaught of winter coming on, I thought it best to take the truck back to my dealership and have it repaired. Knowing that when they open it up, they would find one mangled toy car and a fan that had been chewed up. I am positive that this senario would most likely void any warranty pertaining to the truck so I was mentally prepared to put out several hundred dollars for labor and a new heater fan.
By the time we had finished having breakfast, the dealership called and said the truck was ready to pick up. Fearing the worst, I waited until I picked the truck up to inquire about the problem , the cost, and how I was going to talk myself out of this one. The good news, the cost was zero and the problem was that one of the fan blades, which is plastic had broken. The biggest surprise was that the 2004 Ford, F Series pickups were all equipped by heater fans built for Chevrolet. After having to repair a large number of these fans, Ford switched back to their previous supplier and the problem was eliminated. So, Little Buddy, you are free of any guilty thoughts harbored by Grandpa and just to remind myself, never to blame again with concrete evidence, I drove from Soldotna to the Little Village By the River with my heater on high, upon my arrival the interior temperature was 176 degrees and all of my stashed chocolate was melted. My best to Butch and all my granddaughters, I miss all of you.