theres a first time for everything *rant*

Topic: theres a first time for everything *rant* (Read 6345 times) previous topic - next topic

theres a first time for everything rant

October 28, 2016, 04:08:11 AM

I usually consider myself to be pretty good at buying $500 cars. Now to tell ya all about my 88xr7.
I figured ive about seen it all and can fix most anything on these things. For the first time, I feel like maybe I should have walked away from this one.

The gas tank was held up with some wires. I figured no big deal, hit the junk yard get some straps and call it a day. When I cut the 60' or so of wire off and dropped the tank, the fuel pump wasnt in the tank. It was hanging by a wire. The last guy drilled through the floor of the trunk and attached it to the trunk lid latch. The connector. I cut the wire, pull down the fuel pump which is "spliced" using scotch tape, duct tape and glue, also with a tiny green wire duct taped under the car to a switch wired right to the battery. No fuel pump retention ring, and the gas tank is full of dirt. Luckily it was completely empty, I ran it out of gas since the gas light was on when I got it home.

Get "new" straps, retention ring and wiring from a junkyard car, hose out the gas tank with brake clean and about 12 rolls of paper towels, reinstall the fuel pump and splice in the wiring, car starts right up, I think all is good. About two weeks later the car develops and intermittent fuel pump problem. Let it sit for 20 minutes, it fires back up. When I get it home, the wires all ohm out and cant find anything wrong.
One day the car dies at work and wont start up, so I drop the tank and cant find anything wrong, the connector has voltage but the fuel pump won't turn on. So I drop the tank on my 86 and rob the fuel pump and swap it in the tank. Bench test fuel pump fires up, in the tank nothing. Eventually I find that 6" pasr where I spliced in the "new" connector and wire, there are about 10 splices, this time just electrical tape and twisted together in about a foot of cable. Finally I found the cause of my intermittent no start.
Buy two new tires, a windsheild and throw two new shocks in the rear, plus the cat back off my 86 and I pass safety. Now it's time to swap out the new radiator with the hole some poked in it when they installed it. Luckily I had an extra in storage.

I bought a pressure tester open box on sale at harbor freight and hooked it up. Instead of leaking at the radiator, it leaks out of the also new looking water pump. Seems like a gasket so I buy a new gasket and tear it all apart. Once I get the water pump off, I find its full of rusted water, is hard to spin and the gasket leak was actually the weep hole someone had filled up with silicone.

Now for a new water pump. While in at it, why not do a thermostat and a quick tune up to get rid of the rough running idle and bad stumble. Get all that done, rotate all the spark plug wires over two posts and the car seems to idle much better but still stumbles. Oh well, drive it for a few days with no obvious water leaks.

Deciding ive about got everything major fixed and that it feels pretty solid, I drive 50 miles to pick up my kids from school. On the way back it starts overheating.
I let the car cool down and check the water level, seems a little low, but took less then a gallon. So I figured I just didnt have all the air bled out yet. Today, I drive the car to work and I keep getting weird spikes where it says its overheating on the guage, but cools right back down and the heater never quite so I know it's not out of water. So after it cools down after work, I pour some more water in it, irritated I cant find a leak and surprised at how much water it took, so I let it warm up good and hot on a quick drive. No weird temp spikes, no puddle when I park it. Let it cool down again, and after 12 miles of driving, it ate a gallon of water. My buddy stopped by, so I had him rev the engine while I was laying under it, and I see water dripping off the under side of the exhaust manifold.

Upon closer inspection, leaking between the #2 and 3 cylinders where the head meets the block.

Out of probably 10 302 cars, this is the first head gasket leak ive ever seen. My $500 car has turned into well over $1000 now, and now im looking up gasket kits and pricing stuff out. I just don't get why people.cant be honest when you buy a py $500 car. My favorite part, the guy tells me he drives it on a 500 mile trip 2 or 3 times a month and that it would pass safety with just a windsheild. I knew that was bs, since it had a cherry bomb welded straight to the cat and no tail pipe.

Just venting. Wish I hadnt disabled my 86 by borrowing parts to get this car through safety. Now I gotta do a head gasket, hopefully the head and block are fine when I get it all apart, or illd be robbing parts off this car to drive my 86 temporarily until I can get everything fixed. Funny how much cheaper and more reliable my 340k mile car is then the "clean one owner" with only 180k.

theres a first time for everything rant

Reply #1 – October 28, 2016, 01:33:21 PM

Slap a known good motor in it and forget about fixing someone else's bullshiznit hack job. Then again, I've had a few 400-500 dollar cars and I quickly figured out that I get what I pay for, and sometimes a shiznit-ton more.

Paid 3 grand for my mountaineer over 4 years ago, still runs, though it's falling apart around me. I wanna drive it till it drops dead, but. Thing has close to 350,000 on it, original engine and trans. Definitely feel remorse when I euthanize it, for sure.

theres a first time for everything rant

Reply #2 – October 28, 2016, 05:06:25 PM

Quote from: Haystack;457550

I usually consider myself to be pretty good at buying $500 cars.
I just don't get why people.cant be honest when you buy a py $500 car. My favorite part, the guy tells me he drives it on a 500 mile trip 2 or 3 times a month and that it would pass safety with just a windsheild. I knew that was bs, since it had a cherry bomb welded straight to the cat and no tail pipe.

I don't have the skill to buy a $500 car!

What an ass though. It's a $500 car, at least give the next owner a heads up on what's up

theres a first time for everything rant

Reply #3 – October 28, 2016, 05:51:05 PM

Ill have it fixed. I have e7's on my motor on the stand if a head is bad ill just swap them in, then ill pick up the gt40p's ive been eyeballing for sale locally.

$100 or so in gaskets and ill have it running good again. Just with I knew what I was getting into instead of disabling my other car to get this one on the road.

Timing just couldnt be worse. I doubt were more then a few days away from freezing every night here. I imagine a head gasket would also be a lot better to do without being cold as well.

Overall, I figure ill get it done in 3-4 hoursor so, being pretty conservative.

theres a first time for everything rant

Reply #4 – October 31, 2016, 06:10:22 AM

I've had a few 500 dollar cars.

I lost the ambition to wrench on a car to get to work. So I bought a 19K dollar car.

theres a first time for everything rant

Reply #5 – October 31, 2016, 07:24:41 AM

Quote from: Tbird232ci;457568

I've had a few 500 dollar cars.

I lost the ambition to wrench on a car to get to work. So I bought a 19K dollar car.

Buy a car that's over 1000.... Has never once broken on the way to work. No, that has let hoses go twice AND a coolant fitting on the intake, but always on the way home and close enough to where it'll get home so I can fix it. :p

theres a first time for everything rant

Reply #6 – October 31, 2016, 04:03:03 PM

Mine was over a thousand, about 19 times over!

theres a first time for everything rant

Reply #7 – October 31, 2016, 11:12:59 PM

Quote from: Tbird232ci;457579

Mine was over a thousand, about 19 times over!

That bad boy better NEVER break then! :p

theres a first time for everything rant

Reply #8 – October 31, 2016, 11:57:48 PM

To be fair, ive had about 11 $500 86-88 cougarbirds now, and most of them would go for over $1k anywhere else :p

When I was 16 and knew nothing about cars, I would buy a car for $500, try to fix it, make it worse till I couldnt figure it out, junk it for $400 then buy another one and do it all over again.

Now I consider myself to be at least average, ive swapped transmissions, engines, rebuilt and replaced a ton of stuff, and I am started to get halfway decent at troubleshooting junk.

A car is only worth what you get out of it. Ive had cars that lasted me years that I figured I would brake even if they only made it a block..even with my xr7 blowing coolant and overheating in less then 15 miles, it's still a fun car to drive. Something about it being a $500 car both makes the minor issues more liveable, and the better attributes even better.

Now I just gotta talk myself out of the gt40 heads for $100 for an a complete h.o. Swap at the same time.

theres a first time for everything rant

Reply #9 – November 01, 2016, 10:35:08 AM

im still way back on the fuel tank story, tells me there might be a ton of other surprises waiting for you down the road

my favorite part here is " im getting pretty good at troubleshooting junk " ,, thats classic!

theres a first time for everything rant

Reply #10 – November 01, 2016, 12:47:22 PM

If you can troubleshoot a cobbled together pile, you can troubleshoot anything.

theres a first time for everything rant

Reply #11 – November 02, 2016, 04:09:09 AM

Or throw parts at the pile of shiznit until everytime you pull up to oreilly's they roll out the red carpet and escort you to the VIP lounge...

Cars arent worth what you get out of them....unless you have an unmolested collectible classic, you're going to lose money everytime. Especially with an '80s domestic.

theres a first time for everything rant

Reply #12 – November 02, 2016, 02:51:05 PM

Every new car you will lose way more money.

Insurance is $40 a month and no car payment.

A $15k car or so with a 5 or 6 year loan would be about $300 a month and the insurance would be more then double, $120 a month or more. So there is $420 a month on a car you don't own. Being as ive got about $1k into this car, or roughly 2 months on a new car, id say that im still saving money.

Now let's say the car runs pretty good after and I dont need to throw a ton of money into it for a few months. Im not gonna be throwing a new waterpump at it every few months, and waste all $12. Same as the $200 windsheild or $160 on tires. Most of the money ive actually spent on this car is general wear and tear stuff to get through safety.

It's not conveiant when the far does break, but I'd rather it was a $500 car. I can fix most anything on itfor dirt cheap. Id rather drive crossed country in one of these cars sight unseen then any other car.

theres a first time for everything rant

Reply #13 – November 02, 2016, 03:56:39 PM

I've told the tank-wire-fuel-pump-open-hole-wire-support story to a few people and the reactions are priceless.

That's a good one. I mean league of it's own.
I'll continue to make old stuff work, PITA as it is. My criteria for a vehicle is too specific, I'm too cheap, don't feel like making payments/owing people money. Finally, government regulation on new goods isn't likely to ever regress any time soon...the requirements only seem to stiffen more and more. It's freedom baby, yeeeeeahh!!!!

theres a first time for everything rant

Reply #14 – November 02, 2016, 04:12:47 PM

If it wasn't for having owned a few 500 dollar cars, I probably wouldn't be half of the mechanic I am today. The most money I paid for a car, other than my FRS was 1700 dollars, and that was for a Mustang. Almost every car had some cobbled together that I had to rip out, and then figure out why the previous owner cobbled the together. I haven't owned a Ford in probably 8 years, but I still remember a lot of the DTC's, wire colors, sensor voltages and tons of other .

While for years, I was all about the "screw car payments, I spend less in parts a month", I finally appreciate owning a newish car. It's a blessing to get up, go outside, start it, and drive anywhere. If I took any of my older cars more than an hour away, I had to do a pretrip on them, and hawk eye my gauges. The only gauge I need to pay attention to is my fuel gauge.

I've gotten a little bit older (31 isn't that old, but I've been on the old forum since I was 15), and being a mechanic for a living, makes me really appreciate my down time and appreciate not being required to fix my car every weekend.

There's always two sides to the coin. I'm not as young and ambitious, so I'll take the car payment.

Just to FYI, my Scion was 19K out the door. 7.9% APR due to my mediocre credit, and my payment is 396 a month. Full coverage insurance on the Scion and comprehensive on the Trans Am are roughly 110 a month.