It's been said that good business planning is 9 parts execution for every one part of planning. Throw one part Craigslist into the mix and all that good planning goes out the window. It's also been said that no good deed goes unpunished.
The plan for our "old Camaro", the one on the left in the first photo up there with the blown head gaskets. was to try and sell some parts off it to off set the expense of replacing it. Either that or just scrap the damn thing. Craigslist to the rescue. While searching for dashboard bits and pieces for our "new Camaro" I stumbled upon
this needle in a haystack
. These are hard to find; GM only made them for 1995-2002 Camaros and Pontiac Firebirds. Lucky me.
What made the deal really interesting for me was that I had test driven the car that it came out of (above) when I was searching for a replacement for our "old Camaro". The guy who bought this car needed the front clip off it for his wrecked Camaro and was parting out the rest of it. Being able to personally vouch for a used engine your buying with no warranty is important. What's more the engine and the guy I'd buy it from had a friend who could install it for me.
$300 for the engine and $600 for the install. Such a deal. The chain repair shop I spoke with wanted $2,700 to do the swap. Sigh. I wish I had found this engine before I bought the other Camaro but...such is life.
Combine equal parts luck, diligence and dare I say stupidity and this is why I have two identical Chevrolet Camaros. Now, both our boys have cars and although it's expensive insuring
four cars, five if you count the antique insurance on our 1977 Corvette, it's only for the summer. Our new plan is to hold onto the "old Camaro" until the end of the summer and sell it for as much as we can. Our younger son doesn't need a car where he goes to college and, kids today being kids today, he's ambivalent towards it anyway. As long as he has access to some sort of transportation he's fine.
Remember that saying about no good deed goes unpunished? The new engine isn't in our car a week when the SERVICE ENGINE SOON light comes on.
Turned out to be a bad coil pack. Simple fix. A week or so after that the SERVICE ENGINE SOON light came back on. This time the friendly gang down at Autozone couldn't pin point exactly what the problem was. They said it was either a vacuum leak, another cylinder misfire (engine runs fine), a bad O2 sensor or bad wiring for the O2 sensor. Great. Just great.
I dropped the car off at the chain repair shop and had them do a diagnostic on it and for $60 they told me it might be a bad O2 sensor, bad wiring or a failing powertrain control module (PCM); in other words the car's computer. They also gave me a repair estimate of just under $2,000 but that also included struts, shocks, tires and an passenger side outer tie rod. Not sure what I'm going to do about the SERVICE ENGINE SOON light; I can't sell this car for what I want for it with that thing on. Grrr. Needless to say I've got a lot of work to do if I'm going to sell the "old Camaro" for anywhere want we want to.
Today I noticed dark stains on my driveway where out "new Camaro" (the one on the right) was sitting. It would appear that either the power steering pump or the lines for the pump are leaking. I should expect nothing less from one twenty one going on twenty two year old car. When you have two of them I should expect nothing less than double the trouble.
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