Since I had put Seafoam in the oil and coolant flush in the coolant after rebuilding the engine, after driving it to Cinci and back on Friday I flushed and changed both and put in normal fluids for the rest of the time it's in the Park Avenue.
Handled the drive to Cinci and back well enough, though the tape adapter did decide to not work about 10 minutes into the drive up (behaved for the drive back however). There's something still not right with the wipers though as they want to come to rest pointing straight up and not next to the hood like they should.
With the arrival of a new plastic clip to replace the one I broke when I last tried getting the driver's window to work, I tried again yesterday. And discovered that I almost need to just get a whole new door to replace the one on the car- it would be less work and probably cost less. Which means that the window just is going to stay non-functional for now, since I'm not going to spend another $100 or so (gas to get to the yard and paying for the door) and half a day to replace the door.
Getting closer and closer to just finding another car (there's a '92 LeBaron convertible for decently cheap nearby...), pulling the motor for the DMC, and trying to get as much as I can for the rest of this thing...
My reaction after reading this thread.
In reply to t25torx:
What part exactly? Having gotten the car in the first place, or that I'm sick of it and want to be rid of it?
Getting the car in the first place.. It's a Park Ave Ultra for Gods sake, surely there was a better choice out there for a winter beater.
t25torx wrote:
Getting the car in the first place.. It's a Park Ave Ultra for Gods sake, surely there was a better choice out there for a winter beater.
Oh, of course. And if I'd been a bit less quick on the trigger with the registration & transfer I'd likely have simply pulled the engine out and grabbed the 4th Gen F-body convertible that was posted the day I did the transfer. But I bought it pretty much entirely for the engine, whether driving the car itself or pulling it for something else
And the car continues to piss me off. I had to drive today because of the chances of strong winds & rain (bad for bicycles). I thought I'd gotten the wiper linkage issues sorted- I thought wrong, so I had no wipers through the light rain on the drive in, which was worse in some ways than heavy rain which would at least have run off. Hopefully it won't be raining when I drive home, and I'll have to hook up the linkage again and see if I can secure it better (zip tie?) so it doesn't pop off so easily.
So apparently the positive wire for the left-hand turn signals (like, all of them- including the lights on the dash and HUD) is shorted to ground. Which means they don't work at all, so no signaling to turn left. And the driver's window doesn't roll down, so no hand signals. This was the last straw- I'm definitely done with this car. It's up on CL (listed without the engine) for cheap and I got started repairing the engine hoist yesterday and plan to take care of reinforcing it so it doesn't break again in the same way this afternoon. After that I'll swap the cars around a bit (figure though I'd prefer to not be driving it I shouldn't have the DMC trapped when I pull the engine from the PAU.
I've checked and it looks like given the car's weight and what the local scrap company pays for cars I'd get about $200 out of just scrapping it. If I have to go that route, I'll probably strip what I can that looks like it could be sold for a modest price off of it and then find a cheap way to haul it there and be rid of it. Will have to check with the local used auto parts store too... may try and do that on the way home some day (not a fun place to be riding my bike through, but I've ridden through FAR worse). Would love it if someone would buy it outright though and not have to worry about transporting it.
So, the engine was successfully pulled a bit over a week ago. Now I'm just trying to get rid of the rest of the car. Need to update the Craigslist postings with the windshield that got cracked pulling the engine and drop the price a bit to hopefully get the thing out of my driveway in the next few days. Honestly, I think this is one of the first cars where I will not at all think that I'm sad to see it go...
Still trying to get rid of the rest of the car now that the engine is pulled. For the ubiquity of people posting that they buy scrap cars, it's surprisingly and annoyingly difficult to actually get anyone to come out and get it...
scrap is sooo cheap right now that you have to pay to scrap a car...
Maybe include that the catalytic converter is still attached, and they'll all come out of the woodwork
Sell the cat to one of the online purchasers, they've worked well for me in the past. Just check the fine print! Look for one that gives you a price up front rather than after you send it in.
I've sold cats to a place online before and it worked out well enough- but that won't help me get the land yacht of the rest of the car out of the driveway, which at this point is of more of a priority for me than making money off of it.
http://www.cohenusa.com/
Cohen has billboards up all over Cincinnati, talking about scrap prices being favorable (probably for them, not you). Might be worth a try though.
Not sure if Goodwill or St Vincent DePaul will take the Bloated and mutilated carcass of an ill-mannered land yacht as trade or not. Goodwill took my Cavalier a while back that was dead, but mostly complete (minus the fender my brother needed for his DD).