Well, dumb things and cheap first cars seem to go together. My first
car was a $100 Opel GT. The engine was in decnt shape, but there was
rust EVERYWHERE. When I got the car, it had no front brakes. The
rotors were eseentially the bit that bolted to the hub and a donut of
metal that clanged the entire way home. I bolted in a piece of wood
to put the battery on, since its shelf in front of the radiator was
almost gone.
Well, I spent my last few dollars on rotors, caliper rebuild kits,
and a carb rebuild kit. I ended up with a car that would start and
run with with minimal amounts of evil looking smoke pouring from it,
and would top reliably enough that I felt safe. It looked like shit,
sounded like shit, and I probably could've resold it for the $100
plus the the $30 in parts I'd put into it.
The dumb thing I did was not pay attention to the rust. About a
month after I got it on the road, I was driving someone home to a
town about 20 miles away. Going around a corner, the rusted lower
u-joint in the steering shaft snapped. The tow was bad enough and I
was turned into the corner enough that the front wheels plowed and
turned fully to the left. The car cut across the oncoming lane and
flipped when it hit the ditch on the far side of the road. Write off
one Opel GT.
The zinger is I found out my insurance got hit for $100 or so to
replace the sod I had torn up while skidding upside down across the
grass.
andy
banta@abingdon.sun.com
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