I have far too little time for myself, too little money to keep a POS 20 year old clunker on the road. Its been a lemon since I got it, and honestly needed a full ground up rebuild to be worth anything. It looked great...for awhile. Ran like **** when I bought it. Put alot of sweat and blood and money into it and got it running pretty well for awhile. Seemed every time the moment came where I could add a go fast part or make it better, something would break, taking all the cash. I never did get to do with it what I wanted cause it was a full time job keeping it on the road. When you have a wife that wants every second of your time and a boss that wants every second of your time, and no one is happy, I dont have time for this ****. Turbo disintegrated a few months back. I knew it was going south, but couldnt replace it. I got a replacement, and had it installed for free, which was awesome, but was led to believe that "there is no metal in the oil. trust me, Ive been doing this forever". So I drove around for a month with the contaminated oil....even though I KNEW better, I let some words cast doubt in my mind and I ended up trashing the motor. I always feel so stretched for any time of my own, its hard to even get a chance to change oil....as stupid as that sounds. The motor started having so much blow-by that it was blowing oil out of the dipstick tube. Did everything to rule out major damage. Ended up pulling the heads at night, in the rain, by myself with no lights. No sign of a blown head gasket. The heads look flat with a straight edge but theyve been surfaced by a sander. I got sick for a week, then I spent some spare hours last week rebuilding the heads. Did a little more port work, back cutr on the valves, new springs and seals, ground the stems to get the right lifter preload (was really bad before)..They were totally ready for the trash pile since theyve been surfaced too many times and had too many valve jobs. I managed to save them. I needed to find someone on saturday to deck them, but my wife sprung this kids b-day party...her step sister's kid's 2nd b-day...if i dont show up, my wife's whole side will talk **** about me behind my back since thats how they are. And she'll make my life hell if I dont get it over with. I got out about 3PM and couldnt find anyone to deck them. Had to drive damn near all over socal to piece together a complete head gasket swap kit with everything I needed since NO ONE anywhere had it. I had to get this car running since its all I have and Im driving my brothers honda which is for sale and he needs it back. I dont have any time to do it right, which SUCKS. I never was sure if it was the bottom end that was bad, but regardless, I knew that I didnt have the time, money or energy to pull the motor out and have it rebuilt. I just dont. Between a bad back and a bad heart, its just too much. There are plenty of people who offer to help and none ever does...or they may show up but they just stand there and dont do anything the whole time..(except when lou did the turbo for me) so I have to figure what I have time for and what I dont since its only me out there and Im drowning in obligations. I also couldnt afford to have a ****ed up car and lose thousands in value, since I want to sell it and dont want to be forced to drive a POS...cant walk into a dealer and buy a car since my once 800 credit score was totally obliterated by someone once we got a joint bank account and since I was working so many hours, this person said they'd take care of the bills...I ended up losing every credit line and had my credit destroyed)... So Im backed into a wall. So I hoped it was the head gasket (had 60lbs in #5 cylinder), and spent the weekend putting it all back together. I have alot of muscular damage throughout my back, and getting stabbing pains through my heart when im doing **** like this so doing this **** is unbearable but has to be done. I seriously dont think I have alot of time left, (not going to go to a doctor and let him kill me faster) and my wife wants to adopt a kid in 6 weeks?..So I finally get it together, do a compression test, and that cylinder is still bad. Fire it up and it runs worse than before. Runs terrible. Checked the lobes when the thing was apart and it didnt seem bad. It still has tons of blow by and my brothers 1.7 honda would kill this POS. Its slow as hell, getting 8 degrees of knock at 15psi, and its slow as hell. And this morning I popped the cap off the radiator and there are tiny droplets of oil forming in the water...I did everything to seal this **** but it still sprung a leak. It idles terrible, blows smoke out of the valve covers so bad you choke....I GIVE UP. And I didnt even get the chance to finish the bodywork and paint that I spent a month on, on the passenger side before the motor went. In the span of a month, it went from a decent car, to looking and running like a junkyard POS that I wouldnt pay 3 grand for. Sucks when you paid 12 grand. Guess theres a lesson in here somewhere. Passions are for people with the option to have them.
Dont know if this is a bitch fest about my life or my car, but it seems the 2 are merging to the point I gotta let this thing go, before I let the stress kill me. I had time for this stuff at one point in my life, but I'm being forced to choose my passions or a family. My wife thinks its impossible for the 2 to co-exist.
Dont know if this is a bitch fest about my life or my car, but it seems the 2 are merging to the point I gotta let this thing go, before I let the stress kill me. I had time for this stuff at one point in my life, but I'm being forced to choose my passions or a family. My wife thinks its impossible for the 2 to co-exist.
