Some of you may remember me from several forum crashes ago. My very first TD was an 89 Caravan ES which I needed for work, but also needed to satisfy my speed bug. It was a fun couple of years, but eventually I began experiencing a series of unfortunate problems which I never did manage to pin down, but instead only became more and more frustrated. I have repressed the memory of the problem, so I couldn't even tell you what was wrong with it anymore, but suffice to say that I was confounded and simply could not fix the problem.
Over the years that I was active with my van, I managed to acquire 6 other TDs, and only ever got rid of one. The one I got rid of was an 87 New Yorker which was my first "fast" car. I purchased it from a friend with the warning that it likely wouldn't pass a safety inspection due to extensive body rust. I thought I'd give it a try, and worse case I could take the fresh engine and turbo from it for my van. The car was a beast, and I still have very fond memories of it. I didn't even get home from picking it up before I broke it. The car shook under power, was loud and obnoxious, and earned the affectionate nickname "Satan" from one of my co-workers at the time who thought his RX-8 was fast. Unfortunately the extent of the rust was way beyond my abilities at the time, and I didn't even have the facilities to strip all the parts that I wanted either. To this day it remains the only vehicle I've ever crushed, and I still regret it.
With that comes the inspiration for this post: Only a month or two after crushing my first new yorker, a friend from the forum found me an 85 New Yorker for $20. I bought the car from the original owners, who had taken very good care of it, but were at the end of their willingness to put more money into it. I purchased the car and parked it in front of my parents' house. My parents were not impressed to find that I had taken another vehicle under my wing when they returned home from vacation. It basically hung around and got driven on and off whenever my other cars were broken until the neighbors grew militant about having a bunch of run down vehicles parked on the street, and my other parking arrangements evaporated. I was eventually forced to drive it out to Kamloops where it sits now with all my other TDs in a field, getting eaten by mice. It sucks that they're getting eaten, and it sucks that they're so far away, but I simply do not have any other free long term storage available.
The car has an electrical leak, drips oil out of almost every seal, and I suspect the head gasket as well. In short, the interior is immaculate (or was before i parked it on a farm for 2 years, now we'll have to see), but I wouldn't trust the drivetrain further than I could throw it. The night that I drove it out to Kamloops likely represents one of the most sketchy car situations I've ever put myself in. For the final two hours of the journey I was basically driving with one foot on the accelerator at all times to keep the engine from dying (later found out that it was running on 2 cylinders and burning a TON of fluids).
So during my 2 year break from turbo dodge, I have basically learned how to do car restoration not-on-the-cheap with my Monte Carlo project, and I've been toying with applying this philosophy to some of my TDs. It turns out that if one actually purchases NEW parts, things get a little more reliable, just imagine that.
The verdict is that I have a bunch of parts just lying around out there, and I may be able to assemble them into a functioning vehicle which makes more power than my current pathetic DD, for around $1000. The jury is still out on whether I can afford even that much in what remains of this summer before school in the fall.
