$800 Cavalier

[MP81]

Braved the cold/snow/sleet/rain/wind yesterday (glad I didn't wait until today to do them) and swapped the winter wheels/tires onto the Cav, as well as my brother's Buick.


The white is totally, and properly, ridiculous.

[MP81]

Red because Racecav.








Looks like the oil leak I've been smelling through the HVAC at idle is likely what is causing a small little drip on the ground - coming from either the front main or the front of the oil pan gasket. Switched (finally?) to High Mileage oil (Mobil Super High Mileage, which is actually a Synth-Blend, compared to the Super 5000 I've been using), maybe that will help.

The fuel leak out back is getting a bit worse (as in, coming down enough to follow the tank heat shield out to the side of the car, then dripping over the exhaust). Need to try reefing down the compression fitting and seeing what that does. Otherwise, maybe I could push the fittings back up the line and clamping some fuel hose there? It's only the return line.

Also, the muffler has more than zero places other than the tailpipe where exhaust exits. That's neat.

[MP81]

Trashed the car last Tuesday morning. Rain picked up to torrential levels, couldn't see any of the lines on the road (lane or edge of road), road curved, I didn't. Ran into the curb head on, about 200 feet on the grass, and then into a hydrant, ripping it out of the ground. It also hit the pipe (which looks like the old hydrant location) next to it, and ripped that out of the ground too. Cav was a god damn tank, kept us safe.










Took the front left "wheel" off. Axle completely split at the inner CV, and the left side of the subframe is all pushed backwards. That would've been fixable (as I've already done that before).





What ultimately doomed the car is the crunched front of the sill. This caused a twist forcing the top of the door open 1/2" even when it was closed.



Then my jack went through the pinch flange. This area was stretched out from the sill being buckled, and must've just finally pulled it apart. That's that.


Cold air intake filter, or it was.


Spent that afternoon putting the car back to stock as best I could (downpipe is still on the car - no way am I trusting it to stay up on stands with me underneath it) and the CAI is worth less than the stock intake parts.


It never was the best car by any means, but it was a good (if ornery) car, and I will definitely miss it.

[TSTONE]

WOW - That sucks. Glad you folks are okay though.

[MP81]

WOW - That sucks. Glad you folks are okay though.

Thanks!

And yeah, it wasn't exactly how I wanted to start my day off last Tuesday.

[MP81]

Tried to have the car towed away for donation on Good Friday, but I, somehow, could not find the title (should have been with all of our other vehicle titles, it wasn't). So I got a duplicate title, and scheduled another pickup.

Then I locked myself out of the house, with the title still inside, so they couldn't take it, again. My wife had to come home to let me back in the house (broke the door handle trying to get in), but the tow truck driver was awesome and was able to come back a few hours later and picked the car up - for real this time.

The car was really deteriorating at an advanced rate, so maybe this was all for the best...









Getting it on the truck and taking it away.









I'll miss the car.