My History of Capri (first in a series)

[rpa351]

Easter Sunday, April 19, 1992. I am 16 years old, have my learner's permit for a drivers license and desperate to drive. My step-grandfather has a car sitting in his driveway that hasen't been used in years. I had always wanted a stang, but this would do. It was an 82 Capri with an auto trans, 2.3 and a sunroof. It was given to me on Easter sunday. I still remember it pulling up in front of my house. Oh, the sound of a 2.3 with a cracked #4 piston! It sounded like it would blow up at any moment. I got my license a month later and I was off in this little beast, waiting for the motor to go. Sometime in mid August after 10,000 miles of abuse, #4 piston finally broke completely while doing a brake torque burnout about a mile from home. I limped home to survey the damage and come up with some sort of plan for repair. Funny how I didn't have this plan already. Carpe Diem. Much more to come......

[SchoolBoy]

Thats funny man, now what are your plans for it?

[rpa351]

For all those who are following- see previous post. It's August, 1992 and the engine is gone. I locate another 2.3 in a local junkyard for $100 and decide with almost no experience working on cars, that I'll try to do this myself. The job that i can now do on this car in a day, takes the better part of a month and a half due to the lack of budget and not knowing how to properly install the torque converter back into the C-3. Much frustration when you think it's all together, you turn the key and then "clunk". Removed everything again and corrected the problem. Finally the Capri was running again albeit with a newly busted windshield (see torque converter reference above and add fist). My friends had taken to calling my car the "crappie" but hey, everything has been a learning process so far. The Capri continued to serve me as well as any first car should and I really admired those wide fenders. On the day before I graduated high school, I painted the bottom half of the car semi gloss black, just like the V-8 cars. The Capri was looking and running as good as ever. That evening was tech school graduation. There was a late afternoon rainstorm that poured down of the road while I drove to the ceremony. The Capri started to hydroplane a little, but just enough to pick up the back end and send my speedo past 85mph. I thought this was pretty cool, so I tried it again. Bad move. This time the car instantly swapped ends and I'm now doing about 55mph backwards when the passenger quarter panel starts to ride the center guardrail. You should have seen the sparks! I thought the whole side of the car was gone. I get out to assess the damage and see that it was only the quarter, but I'm pretty pissed about my own stupidity. Car looked great for 5 hours and then I wreck it. Being that the damage is only cosmetic, I continue my trip to graduation and consider that I should have learned how to weld because I'm obvoiusly going to need this skill now. Story will continue later this week.