trials & triumphs of owning an older car

well, i just have to say that our car has been through a lot. we bought a 1992 Honda Accord just before we moved to Winnipeg (from now on referred to as the "black car"), we decided this would be a good way to own our own car outright, and be able to afford the possibility for repairs. See Michael has a 1991 Honda Accord (referred to as the green car) that has been parked for some time, after it didn't quite survive being used to push a full size pick-up out of the way (aka: rear ender), which we figured would still be good for parts.

it started at some point this winter when the car went into the ditch front end first and filled with water up to the driver & passenger seats. it didn't start after that. Michael did his best to check it out and find the problem himself to no avail. Then he asked his coworkers if they knew a good mechanic in town and they did. So Michael called this guy up and it turns out that he knew exactly what was wrong from what Michael described to him. The computer in our lovely car, is directly under the passenger's feet, which meant it was under water and likely fried to a crisp. It turns out that this mechanic used to work for a Honda dealer, and also has a few older Accords himself. Cool how God could see the big picture when He had us buy this car and arrange for just the right mechanic close to where Michael works. Long story short, we were able to pull the computer out of the green car and it worked, despite the manuals saying it wouldn't because the cars are actually different years. Yay! Michael pulled out the carpet so we could clean it and dry it out, this involves taking pretty much every piece of plastic on the inside of the car off and the seats, to get at the carpet. Michael put the seats back in and we have been driving car without an interior for several months. I'll come back to this in a moment.



The other car story is more recent. Occasionally I've had the key not turn, but if I jiggled the steering wheel so that it would lock, then everything would work fine. Then one day Michael and I headed out and he couldn't turn the key either. He fiddled and jiggled and then it worked, so we let it pass and didn't think anymore of it. Two days later, Michael called me from work at 6pm or so to say he couldn't get the car to start but he was going to call our mechanic and see if he couldn't figure it out. So, I waited...finally Michael called back saying he had given up for the day. Luckily I had our friend Arlene's car that week, so I could go and pick him up. The next day the mechanic came to actually look at the car and they discovered that the ignition had seized, so they pulled the ignition out of the green car only to find out that it didn't quite fit. The did figure out that a screwdriver (or the actual key) could be stuck into this crank thingy on the other end of the shaft that the ignition and key turns, so Michael could at least start the car to come home. The mechanic took both ignitions and set to work to piece together bits of both ignitions and the next day he put it in the black car. Here's a picture of the car without an ignition (the white circle is where we could stick the key in and turn it).



Back to the fact that we had a car without an interior....this past weekend Michael put it back together! Yay! It is so so nice to have a whole & complete car again! I'm so amazed at Michael's ability to take things apart and put them together again. I would be way too scared to take apart the inside of a car for fear that I wouldn't be able to figure out where all the little pieces went when I had to put it back together again!