So this was my ride. It would have been cool if it was a transformer, I think it’s nickname would’ve been ‘Clutch’ if it were.
Shown first here are the photos from the classified listing for when I sold it. It makes me sad how bad the rust looks on the rear quarter panel in these pictures. To my defense, my father has the same car, and he fixed the rust situation at the rear quarter panels with Bondo (+ repaint and everything), and the rust eventually returned. I only had the car for 5 years but definitely used it as a winter beater, so I guess the rust is to be expected…
The car was more of a ‘keep it running’ type project rather than a restoration project. After all it was my first car, so some mistakes were made.
However, when I first bought the car I wasn’t allowed to drive it without performing some SERIOUS maintenance. Starting with the drivetrain, I replaced all 4 corner’s wheel bearings, brake pads, and rotors, performing most of this work in my high-school mechanics shop. Next, I had to tear apart the engine (and I never got any pictures of this, but the dust on the car with the hood up in the picture shown to the right proves how long this mess took me), but at this stage I replaced the head gasket, timing belt, water pump, and the alternator + A/C belts. Later down the road I had to replaced the exhaust front end, and the exhaust cat-back, both of which developed holes from rust.
The subwoofers were a great addition to the car, and I was definitely a neighborhood favorite from there on out. I loved this car so much I rebuilt it out of Lego, using whatever scrap pieces I had. I think that’s what sparked my remote control hobby. The final maintenance I performed on this machine was a clutch slave cylinder replacement. I didn’t drive it much that last summer, and realized I wouldn’t need it to go to university. I decided it was time to sell after my friend was asked if the car was for sale by someone driving by while he was walking up the steps to my house. Sold it for 3x as much as I paid for it!
