I used to have a 78 VW Campmobile that we drove EVERYWHERE. One time when we were going from San Diego to Denver. I was adjusting the timing for the altitude in Yucca Valley, and the motor made a loud, funny (not funny) squeek sound, and quit. I shat myself because I just knew it was the sound of a rod poking through the soft aluminum case.
We towed it to this incredibly nice mechanic who, since we were broke students in a VW bus, he let me do the most of the work in his shop, and put us (with 2 dogs) up in his place.
I tore the motor down to the main crank to find that it was PERFECTLY FINE. As I was reaasembling it, after install all new seals and bearings and blah blah blah whenever you split the engine case, I realized it was the alternator that seized because I has over-tightetened it while adjusting the timing. All I needed was the unstick the alternator 3 days ago, a minor detailed I missed when I was tearing my engine apart to get to the supposed problem.