The Chevette Page!
Welcome to the Land of the misfit car!
My neighbor knew I was looking for a car, so when his good friend said he was cleaning out the back yard, and needed to get rid of an old car, he steered him towards me. Now, I have been looking at much nicer cars, like BMW convertibles, Volkswagen Jetta's, Miata convertibles, and other such cool rides...but I was not going to pass up a
free ride. So, this past Sunday, October 20th, 2002, we went over there and decided to dig the thing out of the backyard. Here's what we found:
A light blue 1986 Chevette 4 door with a 1.6 liter engine that hasn't been run in about 2 years(see the inspection sticker!)The car was totally fithy, and covered in mud. These pictures you see are after the car was cleaned up with a bucket of soap and a hose.
The interior was also vacuumed out. It wasn't that bad, just a little bit of trash, and some dirt. It could probably use a little soap and some scrubbing to get the ground-in dirt out.
What it needed to run again:
Hardly any coolant in the radiator, so 1/2 gallon of anti-freeze was thrown in
Crankcase over-filled with oil. We actually drove it home over filled, and it smoked like crazy till it burned off some of it. The oil was eventually chainged the next day.
The car wouldn't move when put into gear...No transmission fluid! 2 quarts were thrown in, and the transmission went into gear firmly!
I followed him back to my house with it in the Cybervan as it left profuse amounts of smoke all over the neighborhood from all the oil that was in it. A good running was what the car needed, it was mis-firing a little bit when we first got it going (it started on the second crank after putting fuel in it!). After all the oil and crud was burned out, the engine got pretty smooth. BUT it was noisy as hell! The tailpipes are all rusted out around the catalytic converter. Everyone knew it was coming down the road for miles! New tires are also going to be needed. Not only are they bald, but have dry-rotted pretty bad too!
Here's some of the work that was needed:
My thoughts on the difference between a Honda Civic, and a Chevette!