[geeks] baby stuff

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Sat, Jun 29, 2002 at 06:36:03PM +0000, Kris Kirby wrote:
> 1.6L == 96ci. Some ricey-cars have the same size power plant.
> 
> Wow. That's pretty involved work. Mine could probably use an entire set of
> seals and whatnot, but I think I'll leave that for until I get car #2 and
> can afford the downtime. My shitty little Sentra continues to crank every
> day, and as such, remains the one car we have with the lowest priority for
> maintenence. (As I speak, the LTD is up on jack-stands getting it's
> rear-end worked on and a half-shaft installed, the New Yorker likes to cut
> off periodically, my father's truck has the radiator taken out, my
> brother's '64 Lesabre is having a tranny swapped in this weekend or
> next.)

Well, my Sentra wasn't running.  I got it with the blown headgasket
and had to fix it to have a car to drive.  Replacing the headgasket
took me and my dad about a day to do.  We bought the service manual,
and while time consuming and involved it wasn't that hard.  The only
tool we needed but didn't have was a breaker bar for some of the
trickier bolts.

The routine maintence of just replacing the clutch on my Jetta,
according to the service manual I have for it, is significantly
harder than the head gasket on the sentra was.  I suspect doing the
head gasket on this car would also be significantly harder.
 
> All in all, I love the little thing. It's scared me a few times, but it
> always continues to deliver what I ask of it. It's somewhat amazing to
> realize that car will do 85 if you push the pedal, and that's not to the
> floor! (Speedo tops at 105 -- but I lack the muey grande cajones to get
> there in that car.) Looks like shit, but it's never let me down. (Nearly
> cooked a battery though!)

My car would shake pretty badly at about 62 and it would keep doing so
up to 80.  80 was difficult and required being going downhill to
acheive.  But the car had me and a passenger in it (me being
particularly not small) and was heavily loaded with camping stuff.
The shaking would really freak my sister out though.

It wasn't too bad of a little car, but a slightly larger engine would
have been a huge improvement.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd