The story continues from here.
After a three year slumber, being rudely woken up by having it's old heart ripped, replaced with another and a splash of life giving fluids, the "Yellow Beast" was ready to go.
Although sounding a bit on the dramatic side, that's in essence how that part happened.
The only thing that would have come close to being an issue for departure was a seized brake on the driver's rear. After all that time, the emergency brake didn't want to just let go and after a few attempts of rocking the car (clutch, forward, brake, clutch, reverse, brake, etc), freedom was negotiated.
I don't recall if I have ever had General Tires on anything I owned in the past, so this was going to be a rapid introduction to the brand (albeit on aged tires).
Ah yes, the gear stick of motion.
It has been well over a decade since I owned a vehicle that had a manual transmission, the last one was a used, bought over the internet 2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser, back in 2008.
The last time I attempted to drive a manual equipped vehicle was on an aborted test drive for a 2016 Kia Soul in June of 2018. I wound up buying a Mitsubishi RVR with a CVT instead.
The drive from Chetwynd (okay, just outside and to the East of the town) to Fort St. John was a forgettable experience really. No fuss, no muss, the car operated as designed and manufactured. I had both the passenger and driver's door windows rolled about halfway down to allow fresh air to circulate in the stale interior and to listen to the engine and exhaust, for any surprise problems. After about 20 minutes of that and hearing nothing of concern, I tuned in a local Country music station on the FM dial and listened to that for the remained of the trip.
10 days had past before I would drive the Cavalier for the trip home.
Oddly enough, there was one important piece of equipment I didn't check, the windshield-wipers. Now, the first thought that some people might have would be "After all that time, they have to be ruined!" Well, it turned out they weren't and I can't explain it.
Part of the time on the voyage South was to take an inventory of what didn't work on the car, which was a pretty short list. The CD player in the factory AM/FM stereo failed, inserting a disc created a "Err" display on the clock readout and the disc would be promptly ejected. The passenger door mirror was multi-cracked in the middle, but I could still see if something was coming up behind me. The final non-working item was the burnt out reverse lights (I would discover those much later).
It was a late start that day (around 4:30 pm), so when I finally rolled into Williams Lake (about 10:45 pm), I was exhausted and noticed the Cavalier was a bit low on gas. I would get a good night's sleep and deal with that in the morning.
Just outside and to the South of Fort St. John is a small village called Taylor and it was there I gassed up and reset the tripmeter for the first time since the Cavalier was resurrected. This picture was taken right before I reset the tripmeter again, after fueling up in Williams Lake. A 17 year old car, sitting 3 years without running and having oil of questionable vintage (but at a full level on the dipstick) produced that kind of mileage?
There is much to tell about the journey from Williams Lake to Home, no problems or even minor issues to report. Even after a few days of sitting around, the Cavalier was given a much needed oil change, air filter replacement and a really good wash, still nothing bad has happened yet.
In fact, I just made a video about the car, with me driving it....
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