Money, Cars, and Movie Stars

Oy, It turned out that Chicago was more expensive than I thought. Kari and I are so insanely broke, it's retarded, haha. I get so mad when I don't have money - like, I don't even know what to do with myself; I just sit at home and pout, haha. We haven't spent this much time hanging out at home in a long long time. Things are becoming somewhat clean and organized though...

Ok so, if you didn't already know, my car broke down last Thursday on the way to work. Perfect timing for someone who just spent all their money and has to wait until the end of the month for another paycheck. So to tell the story once more... I was sitting at a stoplight on Oralabor when all of a sudden I heard this clunky sound followed by a ton of belt squeaking. I looked over to the car next to me thinking, "wow this guy is driving a total POS." Once the light turned green and I accelerated I realized the noise got louder and the POS was actually my car. The squeaking got really loud then suddenly just stopped. At this moment, my brake, battery, and coolant lights came on, the temp skyrocketed and I lost power steering. I shut the car off, coasted up to Nehru's house, and ran up to his house to get a ride to work.

Just a week prior to this happening, Kari's dad was getting on my case about not having AAA. "You need to get AAA" "No I don't, that's dumb" "You're dumb" etc. It turns out that maybe I should have AAA, especially with a car like mine. Luckily Jeff buys it for Kari to make sure she can atleast get places safely. So she was able to get me a tow home for free, haha.

Once I got the car home, I found that the alternator/water pump belt was off and the car was leaking from 3 different places. I had a guy from Dragsource.com come over to take a look and we decided to fix the leaks and replace the water pump. It turns out the water pump was COMPLETELY shot, which was the cause of all of this. When we pulled it off bearings literally fell out of it, haha. The clunky noise I heard was the pump falling apart which caused the belt to come off and the big anti-freeze leak.

So around 12:15 last night we had the water pump replaced, the leaks fixed (heater core hose, turbo oil return line gasket, and water pump), and got it running normally again. I also recently replaced the idle control motor and cleaned/replaced my battery terminals. Hopefully I can depend on it for another couple months... I love my car. <3

written by 24 year old Derek Brooks

Forgot to mention the last time my water pump went out in college the mechanic charged me $500 to fix it.



This time to replace a water pump, 2 hoses, a gasket, 2 belts, anti-freeze, oil, and paying my friend cost a total of $175

derek posted

oh yeah, i removed the A/C belt and pulley too. I shoulda just ripped the A/C out while I was at it...

derek posted

you also forgot to mention ninja's first "ice on the pond" experience...

kari posted

i'll save that for your blog... you're about due for an update.

derek posted

I didn't call you dumb!

Kari's Dad posted

but Derek, you are pretty dumb!!

jeff posted

NEVER sell the car..One day itll be drag purpose only.

Marc posted

In otherwards Get rid of the A/C,HVAC, P/S, i could go on nd on :)

Marc posted

i dunno, i've got some terrible rust spots in structural places. with enough torque i bet i'd rip the front struts right out of the car.

derek posted

under the hood on the towers?



Its a common rust spot i have seen 2g's run 10's with that rust.



I have also seen estimates of 1k+ getting that fixed....SUCKS

Marc posted

those are the exact spots... you can see the wheels through mine. they're pretty bad.

derek posted

If research is the most important part of buying a used car, then a vehicle history report is perhaps the most important document you can have when buying your next car.
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