Little cut and paste action of sorts from DCA. Sorry I am so late with it:
My story of home from ED3 to now has taken another turn from the worse...
I came back home and about a week later the turbo went in my Saab, which is a major inconvenience. Massive clouds of smoke that would make James Bond jealous. I decided a rebuilt kit for $65 and some hours of labor might be worth the try. There is no telling whether or not it will hold. In the meantime I'd drive the DAF considering it was my only other vehicle.
Everything was great until one day I had no juice, and my stepfather and I took out the alternator and saw the nastiness inside. I think that that might be part of this intermittent circuit issue since when the blinker circuit fails (which happened again, by the way) it wouldn't charge. That is getting rebuilt. I bought a generic alternator with the correct amount of amperage, mounting bracket, but unknown to me the pulley shaft was a different size. It took over a week to come in because the bastards didn't even order it, which is weird because I don't know where all that follow up dates came from (liars, if you ask me). I tried getting another pulley but the computers were down at all the local auto shops due to the storm. Honestly I was surprised they were open.
Had a shop check out the turbo, the kit didn't hold. I'm just going to part it out and scrap the rest (sum of the parts is greater than the whole, maybe even if the kit worked!) and put towards a loan for a car that I just purchased.
The DAF was usable, but I had rigged up a massive GM alternator just to run the V-belt to get the water pump spinning. It worked great actually! Used it to get to the Mills Mansion show.
Everything was going great. I went to the last local Halloween Cruise in. Good reception. Warm night too. I went to a friends party that evening and, details aside, stayed the night.
I woke up to my friends father telling me he accidentally backed into the DAF.
UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIf it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck.
So now I have a rather large dent in the passenger door. He offered to fix it, and therefore I made an appointment to a GREAT local body shop for the next few days. It's repairable, for sure, but at what extent I do not know. I'll definitely keep you guys updated. I'm terribly busy with college so it's difficult to find time to post.
I'm so horribly bummed out, too, due to everything...
I'm going to wait to get it fixed until the spring. My friends father put it well; he said, "I feel like I just shot a unicorn." He thankfully offered to pay for everything, regardless of the extent of the fix, but I feel terrible for him because there are major price hops in blending, and repainting the whole car to make sure everything matches.
Well anyway. Here are some pictures... It's hard to tell but there is paint taken off from the scrapes.
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More than one friend had referred me to "great" local shop and I brought it there Sunday. I was extremely unhappy with him, so I took it back home. He was promptly bashing every aspect of the DAF, and was insistent that I should get, and should be able to secure a cheap new door. After minutes of explaining that it is out of the question, I told him to have a nice day. He wasn't worried about the dent, he was worried about this small section of rot on the bottom of the door face and also on the very bottom of the door and how they will be impossible to fix without extensive body work. ....I mean I could fix that rot myself!
My new plan is to get a quote from a friend with a shop, but I am prepared to do all the body work, minus the large dent (I don't have the skills for that one, and I don't have to pay for that one), and have someone pull that and paint the whole car over again, but it means taking the next car season off
.
Part of it also is I distrust every mechanic shop there is and nearly refuse to bring my vehicles in without doing extensive work myself.
Anyway. I'll keep you updated. Sadly, the next one will probably be just alerting you guys its away for good for the winter
The new car is awesome though. Nice to have car that I don't have to worry about all the crazy Saab problems
Vince