1987 Chevy Cavalier

This is the Famous Flying Crapalier TrashWagon. I bought this GM J-car for 300 dollars. I painted the Driver's side primer grey and installed a pair of Desert Fox "Baja Tough" 100 watt halogen lights on the top. I drove it back and forth to work and occasionally cruised it in Kendallville, IN. I the power wire for the lights was connected directly to the alternator, which fried the fusible link on the starter, leaving me stranded. I got the car towed home, and replaced the starter, then discovering the fusible link was burnt. I thought I lost money on replacing the starter, but I had the old one tested at Auto Zone, where the test showed it was about to go anyway. I liked to run premium gas with 104 brand Off-Road formula octane boost, which bumped the octane up to about 100. I also installed coil spring boosters, a cheap way to make the car more Baja capable.

I had a fat wad of money left over from a government grant for Ivy Tech classes. I decided to take a trip to Lebanon, IN to visit a friend I met at Gibault School for Boys. I drove from Ashley, IN to Terre Haute first to visit at Gibault. The car Hauled ass pretty good, drafting semis and taking it up to 90 mph with its 2.0 motor. When I was leaving Gibault, the car stalled momentarily. I got it started up and headed up the state highways to Lebanon. I arrived in Lebanon later that day. I cruised around all day looking for my friend, but I could not find him. I was ready to call it a day and head home, but the car stalled when I took a shortcut through some grass. I got it to the gas station, but it would not run from there. I had it towed by Kincaid's. It was a Friday, and I could not have it serviced until Monday. I said piss on Kincaid's and had it pushed by an Astro Van to Auto Zone. I tried to fix it myself. I bought a new injector and an in-line fuel pump to try to get it running. That didn't work, and I wasted about $130 on the parts. I figured it must be the computer (damn technology) causing the fuel pump to not work. I spent the night in the Auto Zone parking lot. I had the car pushed up to Farris Amoco to have it fixed, but they couldn't get to it right away.
I was walking when a girl asked me for a lighter, and I asked her if she knew my friend. She gave me a phone number and I finally found him later that day. It was Monday and I had the car pulled by a Nissan Truck to Crown Chevrolet, where they got to it fixing the car. It was ready the next day, and they billed me over $300 for replacing the computer. I drove away, went around the block, and smelled gasoline. Gas was leaking out of the charcoal canister, which was caused by either a pinched hose, or hoses hooked up backward. They fixed it for free, but the more I thought about it, the gas tank was removed to fix a bad ground wire, which explains the temporary stalling problems from before. I am pretty sure they made me pay for a computer that was instead a bad wire. They stooged me, them Bastards!

I stayed in Lebanon for a while, hanging out and screwin' around. The car became somewhat popular, hauling everyone around and taking them on beer runs for gas money. Everyone was hanging around when I was about to paint orange on the side to look like my Oldsmobile. I managed to paint the driver side door before I got carried away. I ended up painting "Crapalier TrashWagon" on the driver side, and "White Trash Taxi on the other. People took at it with markers and drew pictures and signed their names all over the car. I fixed a He-Man figure to the bumper and stuck a Mountain Dew bottle where the gas cap wasn't. I explored the Lebanon Urban Baja and fount an old tore out railroad that went to Hazelrig. My first trip down the way got me stuck on a pile of dirt that was in the way. We managed to get free by digging around the car and jacking the car up and pushing it off the jack. I cut my fingernail down the middle on the rust on the rocker panel. The next attempt, we went down a county road past the pile of dirt, and got back on the trail at another intersection. I went down the way to find that there was a steep hill dug out by a bulldozer in the way. I turned the car around, backed up over the hill several times to wear it sown, and made a 50 foot dash for it and bottomed out scraping over the top. I made it to Hazelrig. On the way back, I tried to drive down the part of the trail we skipped, and got hung up on another hill. We had to get a farmer to pull us off the hill, and we were on our way.

The ultimate test of car punishment is to send it airborne. There is a railroad crossing on county road 250 with a steep hill it crosses over. I jumped it several times, even with a carload of passengers. I was doing about 50 mph when this photo was taken. One time I got billed over coming off the jump, but I was stopped for my exhaust dragging, leaving a stream of sparks. I managed to get the cop so sign my car.

Then there was the time I got pulled over in the McDonald's drive thru. Their drive thru was closed, so I parked the car there to keep people from going thru. I mistakenly pulled out in front of someone going into the drive thru, and the called a cop out there. The cop came around with lights on and asked to see my license (technically a traffic stop). There was a confusion about my license being suspended, and it caught up to me a few days later. It turned out that my license WAS suspended, and my 30 days to have my plates transferred expired that day, and I was stopped after a notice of my suspension was sent to Officers on Patrol. I was stopped on Lafayette Ave at the liquor store and I was stuck with Driving While Suspended(infraction), and False or Fictitious plates and registration. The car was towed away, never to be seen again.

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