Thank you for the friendly welcomes!

The mechanics have been bleeding me dry lately, and the account is about empty for repairs to this Chevy. Reading some of the tips on here has given me a little hope of accomplishing some of the repairs on my own, and actually keeping the car.
Unfortunately, I gave away my jack stands and grease guns back in the 80's, so I'm pretty far out of touch with today's technology.

Will post my problems, in hopefully the correct section, and maybe some of the fine members here can help me through my trials!

Doug

 

Welcome to the Forum!

 

Hello Doug; welcome to the site. I'm not going to sugar coat this so I'm going to come right out and say this. To have an old car it can't be "just transportation". You have to love your car and have passion for it or this will not be worth while. There will always be a repair that is needed especially if you use her daily. My suggestion to you is to establish a repair fund and keep about 3500 in it and use that for your repairs as needed. When you spend from it replace it as money allows. This should be sufficient to cover most repairs and it won't feel like you are always drained from repairs. The other alternative is to dump the Monte and go buy new. Car payments these days are between 400 and 700 dollars a month. At that rate how quickly will you spend 3500 and still be totally upside down in a new car that with in months will also need extra money spent on service. Keep servicing your Monte and you will actually make money verses the new car scenario.

 

Welcome to the Forum ..

 

Sorry, Mouse. This MC never has been, and never will be a passion for me. Bought it new, and it's comfortable, but all in all, it's just a reasonably good-mileage way to and from work.
The only thing keeping me in it is the amount I've pumped into repairs over the last couple years. New car is on the horizon, but the investment in the MC has now grown to the point of "obligation" to keep it for a while longer. I just can't stand the scenario of paying $400 for a $100 part, or $900 for a $250 part, installed by the dealer. Yes, I'm a cheap bast...

Now, my pickup... that's another story. That has always been my baby, since I picked it up with 17 miles on the odometer in April 1989.

 

So don't buy the parts from the dealer?

 

It's the installation that's killing me. The parts are only a portion.
My 'regular' shop says they aren't equipped to do some of what seems like routine repairs on this thing. That was disappointing.

 

Can you explain a little further? A lot of things that are "hard" to do, really aren't that bad with basic hand tools.