What was that?

1948 Ford Tudor

  When I have started the car the last couple of days it made an odd clunk sort of sound.  It wasn't like when the battery is that, not that clunk.  I would clunk or clank and start and off I'd go hither thither and yon.
  Yesterday I started the clunk, clank sounding car about 3:45AM it started and ran, I de-frosted the windows with Prestone spray (it's cheap) instead of scraping.  I drove into Bangor and stopped at the On-the-run Store at Union and Griffin.  I bought my coffee to walk with (it was cold 19 degrees) it's a hand warmer.
  I got back in the clunk clank car and it SUPER clanked, it was no go!  I called AAA and in 15 minutes or so the tow truck came.  He tried to jump start clunk, clank no go.  I had him tow the car to the garage that does all my non-body work in Brewer.  I walked down to the Airport Mall and walked kind of around the front edge and to McDonald's.  My fiend Paul was already there so I sat in his truck (it runs and starts).  After coffee he gave me a ride to Brewer Walmart so I'd be warm while I waited for the garage to open.  I wandered the aisles until about 6:45 and walked down Wilson Street to my car, open it up and waited a few minutes.  I went in and explained to Peter what was going on and took a seat.
  In a couple of hours the mechanic came in with the starter, the whole casting that holds the works was split into two pieces - thus the clunk, clank.  They had already ordered the new one and had it, but to change the starter on the 2007 Chrysler (below) you have to remove the intake manifold! (WHAT???)  They also inspected the gear inside the bell housing for broken teeth, it was okay.
  Now I was back in business, right?  Well, not so fast old timer.  Now the car wouldn't shift out of first gear into drive.  What the heck is going on?  After he ran diagnostics the computer had un-set itself and needed to be reset so it could tell the car how to shift, light up and whatever else a car does.
  $595.36 later I was "free" to leave.  I showed you the '48 Ford because my first car was just like that, except green.  Even I, one who has the mechanical ability of a poodle puppy, could work on.  I could have change the starter on that car in twenty minutes, I wouldn't have had to remove any other parts except disconnect the battery cable.  So as I have entered my 70's things have changed so much that even I don't know what I'm doing.

The victim and the culprit, which is which?
Photo by Linda Grant - 2008