We opened up the radiator cap. Coolant's milkshake-brown. Blown head gasket. Car is dead.
We're going car shopping soon. Going to arrange for the money while we're in Longview for Christmas. I'm leaning toward an early-90s Honda with a stick shift - those things are impossible to kill. My parents had an early-80s model sitting in the side yard for several years - a maple sapling managed to grow through the engine compartment - and once they got the tree out of it, it started up and ran just fine. A friend of mine had a '92 which he flipped in a ditch and kept running upside down for a couple of minutes - a maneuver which complete killed the engine of another friend's Mustang of similar vintage, so that it never ran again - and after he'd turned it off, flipped it back over and started it again, there were no problems whatever. I firmly believe you could drive a Honda off a cliff and as long as the driveshaft wasn't snapped by the impact you could make it home.
Re: THE NEVER ENDING SAGA
We're going car shopping soon. Going to arrange for the money while we're in Longview for Christmas. I'm leaning toward an early-90s Honda with a stick shift - those things are impossible to kill. My parents had an early-80s model sitting in the side yard for several years - a maple sapling managed to grow through the engine compartment - and once they got the tree out of it, it started up and ran just fine. A friend of mine had a '92 which he flipped in a ditch and kept running upside down for a couple of minutes - a maneuver which complete killed the engine of another friend's Mustang of similar vintage, so that it never ran again - and after he'd turned it off, flipped it back over and started it again, there were no problems whatever. I firmly believe you could drive a Honda off a cliff and as long as the driveshaft wasn't snapped by the impact you could make it home.