After all the pain and the money handed to the mechanic, Cedric came home on its own wheels. It drove. Just not the way I wanted. Under load it lost power, and somewhere deep down I could hear a light miss. Misfire. I decided to swing by Pete's and dig into it. Especially since we had been meaning to install that famous resonator Pete designed and had made at some Chinese factory. How it would sound on my car I had no idea. On Pete's X5 it sounds like a Ferrari.

Put the car up on the jack. First we thought about mounting the resonator where it usually goes. Then we decided right before the can. It would sound different, no exhaust past it on the back side, but I didn't want to torture the whole system, so I put it at the very end of the pipe. Cut a piece off the famous resonator, welded it onto the tail quick. Yeah, I know a resonator goes at the front, not the back. Even so the sound got deeper, the highs came off, the tone settled a little more flat. But not raspy. A noble note, and I liked it right away.

Started off well and fast. And since it was all going so smooth, we figured we'd take a look at the jumping RPM while we were at it.

If I had known it would be three weeks in the driveway.

It started easy. Blew cleaner through the MAF sensor. Seemed a little better. The jumping tach needle went nowhere. Alright, time for spark plugs. And that is where it started.

We got into unbolting the top of the engine, and it all came apart. A bolt strips off its threads, a hose that had been sitting for decades cracks apart in your hands from old age. Started the car and realized one line was spraying fuel left and right. All of it had to be fixed. Drove to the nearest parts store, loaded up on lines and hoses, came back home. I had picked the plugs out ahead of time and was threading them in by hand. Even though they were supposed to be torqued to spec, full number. Torque wrench. You know, that tool that tells you how tight you cranked it. Pete had some old one lying around for exactly this. Fine, cranked them as is. Next day we buttoned it all back up. Car started and, horror, sounded worse than before.

Pete said, here's what we do. Change the plugs again, even though I just put new ones in. The plugs I bought were Bosch, and Bosch on these engines gets ragged on a lot, people run NGK instead. That is exactly what Pete suggested. Change the coils. Go through all the vacuum lines. Swapping plugs I just paid for was the last thing I wanted. But for the sake of a clean experiment we decided to do it right. The MAF was on the list too, except on my Cedric that sensor is almost impossible to find. I'm not sure it even exists in Japan, and if something does turn up it's probably off a different car.

Took a day off. That evening after work we decided to test the vacuum first. Had to run to Harbor Freight for a smoke machine. No cheap one in stock, only the expensive one, but what can you do. And surprise. Right where we had saved on gasket maker, smoke was going up to the rockers. A serious reason to tear it all down again. We tore it down.

After that I fought the bolts for a long time. The right ones I couldn't find: what I had was too short, had to drive it back to the dealer. The smartest move in our case was to order the bolts from a shop that makes them custom. And lo and behold, 3 days later the bolts were ready and sat perfect.

Back under the hood. Stripped it down to the block. Grabbed the gasket maker, this time not cheaping out, knowing how serious it was. High temp, of course. Laid it on, cranked it back together. On the side we grabbed NGK. And good news: on that Cedric we dragged out from behind the office a few days back, there were noticeably fresher coils. So we were ready.

When I pulled the old plugs, I think I found why the car was shaking so bad. One plug was broken in two. Either I overtightened it, or it came cracked already. Either way, in two. Pulled everything, put the new ones in, this time with the torque, 14 foot pounds. Then the coils, then the covers. Cranked it all down and left it overnight. I wanted to fire it up that same evening so bad it hurt, but it was clear: do it now and the pressure squeezes the fresh gasket out. We waited.

From the new Cedric I also dragged over a MAF sensor, and we swapped that in too.

Next evening I put the key in. The engine cranked but wouldn't catch. Well. Here we go again.

By that point we had soaked Pete's whole driveway in fuel, peeling off the tar or whatever he's got smeared over the concrete. I figured the pressure in the system hadn't built back up yet, give it a chance. Held it on key on for a few seconds, turned the key to ignition, and after a couple of coughs it finally caught. RPM a little higher than I wanted, but no power loss, no vacuum leak. Ran like new. Just high. Went back under the hood, and turned out the idle wire was pinched a bit. Freed it, the RPM dropped. Not perfect, but down to a decent idle. In drive and reverse it holds like normal, in neutral it sits a touch high. What that's from, no idea yet. But the main thing: no needle jumping. Great. I'm ready.

Drove it to the house and got such a kick out of it that I knew right away: tonight I'm running Cedric until midnight.

Grandma's Sonic had been sitting at Pete's this whole time. We took two cars to my place. Pete got lost somewhere at a light, either he wasn't in a hurry or I got too into Cedric, which was pulling like it should. Dropped my car at the house, went back for the Sonic on his truck, the two of us. And since the day was going so well, we grabbed a can of 134a that had been rolling around Pete's back seat and recharged grandma's AC. And lo and behold, an arctic wind came out of the vents. I drove back fully content, already picturing myself carving up the highway in my beloved Cedric.

And it was a good day.

My friend has a trailer. I have a wrecked donor. The donor sits behind my mom's office and the gap between those two facts is the whole story.

I bought the donor because these days it's easier to buy a second car for parts after a wreck or an auction than it is to find the parts on eBay. Especially when your car is vintage. Especially when it's JDM. Go ahead, try to find a fender for an '89 Cima. I'll wait.

Day one. The plan was to swing by Pete's, grab the trailer, move the car, done by dinner. Pete doesn't drive his tow rig much, so the battery was flat. We tried to jump it. That's not the size of vehicle you jump off a car battery and win. We gave up after work and pushed it to the next day.

Day two. I got to the lot in the morning and realized we wouldn't have moved anything the night before anyway. To drag a wrecked Cima out from behind the office you need a winch. Pete owns a winch. It isn't bolted to anything, and there's no steel plate under the trailer to anchor it. So I figured I'd grab a winch from Harbor Freight, bolt it straight to the car, and hook the cable to the rings inside the trailer.

Started early. Pete showed up around three with the trailer, and I still wasn't done prepping. Good thing we didn't try this the night before. We'd have accomplished nothing and broken something doing it.

Here's where it went sideways. I'd told Pete come to the office, he was picturing a plaza, a parking lot, room to move. His tow rig is twenty feet on its own. Add a twenty foot trailer. That's a road train. My mom's office is not built for road trains. Pete pulled onto the lot and got stuck. The car was all the way in, the trailer only halfway, reversing was impossible. Active traffic behind, a narrow lane, and a little bridge. One foot the wrong way and the trailer goes swimming.

Great.

We stared at it for a while and arrived at the only answer. Unhook the trailer from the rig. Did that fast. Then the suffering started. A trailer like that weighs a couple of tons. The rig we pulled clear and re-parked, easy. The trailer we moved by hand. Past the seventh round of sweat Pete announced he'd forgotten deodorant and was going to stink for the rest of this. We dragged it to the opposite side of the lot, by the exit. I don't know how we managed because we broke the dolly we were using to move it, but we got it turned around and backed in.

Hooked the winch to the rings inside the trailer and started pulling the Cima in. I'm a big guy, so I push. Pete's small, so I told him get inside the Cima, you steer. There he sat, through the busted window, the interior turned inside out, trying to drive a car that was being dragged by a cable.

We got stuck twice. Opened the doors, got it halfway up, then realized the door support cables were blocking it from going further. Had to let the Cima back down, close the doors, and keep pushing, because somebody still had to turn the wheel. Pete squeezed in through the broken glass, then back out. A workout he didn't sign up for.

Then the horror. Cima halfway into the trailer, and somehow the trailer decided to tip. Turns out the Cima is almost as heavy as the trailer, and with the wheels sitting where they were relative to front and back, and the trailer not hooked to the rig, it stood up on its tail. Impressive, honestly. I had to sprint to the front of the trailer and climb onto the hitch. That brought it back down with a crash onto the front.

Pete felt that one in his soul. His brand new trailer deck, just scraped raw. Cima dripped oil all over it. Fresh wood, gone. We'll find a day and repaint Pete's pole and his trailer. Not today.

When the Cima was almost in, the winch died. Right on cue, like a good comedy. We were pulling to one side, the cable wrapped uneven on the drum, jammed the whole mechanism, and burned out in the same second. Well. That's it, we thought. This car is not going up into the trailer. Not one of us, not both.

Then Pete, so thoroughly fried by the whole adventure that his problem-solving brain leveled up, looked around and said let's grab the straps. Ratchet straps. The kind that pull big loads tight with a ratchet you crank back and forth. He wrapped them around the frame. The straps don't have much travel, they're made to pinch a load down to the deck, not haul it forward. So the move was simple. Crank a little, slide sandbags under the wheels, release, reset, go again. Five, seven times. After a lot of suffering, the Cima finally sat inside the trailer.

Pete climbed into the rig. I got into my grandmother's car. The same one we saved with four umbrellas an episode ago.

As they say, the night was young and the problems were just getting started.

We'd been at it until dark, so by the time we rolled out it was night. And surprise, both of Pete's low beams were dead. Just not working. The fix was simple. I drive in front, he runs high beams behind me. Last thing we needed was to get stopped. So I drove the whole way home half blind.

Not the end of it. Pete and I don't run trailers every day, and getting onto the highway we met the usual move from drivers who decide to pass a trailer on a curve. What a mistake. One more second and the trailer would have taken out a Chevy Traverse that decided to overtake the road train, because trailers, as we all know, swing wide. Pete reacted in time and went left onto the shoulder. Saved my beloved Cima, his trailer, and clearly that guy behind the wheel of the Traverse.

Got to my place after that without much drama, but at the last moment the tank ran dry. We meant to park it perfectly. Three minutes in, we both admitted we wanted to sleep. Long day for both of us. So we parked it as is. Dropped the Cima on the front lawn and went our separate ways.

The next day was a brutal one at work. After that workout I felt tired the moment I woke up. But Pete swung by the shop and brought good coffee. That woke me up enough, and I worked my normal day like nothing happened.

And it was a good day.

I'm fixing my 1989 Cedric.

While it's apart, I drive to work in my grandmother's car.

She's a senior, she doesn't go anywhere, so the little Chevy is mine for now. A 2014 Sonic. Tiny. I'm a big guy. Picture Mr. Incredible folded into the family hatchback and you've got the idea.

Worked a full shift. 8:30 to 6:30. Walked out to the Sonic and the sky had opened up. Full thunderstorm. And I'd left the windows cracked.

Grandmother's car. Windows down a couple inches. Rain coming in sideways.

Here's the problem. My keys were locked inside the store. My phone was dead. I couldn't just hop in and roll the windows up because I couldn't get in, and I couldn't call anyone to let me back in because I had no phone.

So I ran to the CVS next door.

Now, the smart first move is a phone charger. Call someone. Solve the lockout. That's move one for a reasonable person.

I bought four umbrellas first.

One for each door. Walked back out into the storm, opened all four, and stuffed one into each cracked window so the rain would hit the umbrella instead of grandma's seats. The Sonic sat there in the downpour wearing four umbrellas like a tiny float in a very sad parade.

A little grainy car bristling with umbrellas in the middle of a Florida thunderstorm. I will treasure it forever.

Then I got reasonable. Bought the charger. Juiced the phone enough to make calls.

Called my store manager, Sunny. Then retail services. That guy said I should be fine to come back in real quick, but I needed it cleared with the regional manager first. Messaged the regional. Got the okay. Somebody walked me back through the store, watched me the whole way like I was casing the place, and handed over my keys.

Started the Sonic. Pulled the umbrellas. Drove home in the rain.

The inside was soaked. I couldn't wipe it down because it was still pouring when I got home and it never let up. Grandma's seats, damp. Grandma, unaware.

I did not tell her.

The next day I was out working on the Cedric and it started raining out of nowhere. A lady across the street was running to get out of it. I had three umbrellas I no longer needed. I walked one over and handed it to her. One down. Skedaddled back to the car.

Three umbrellas left, a wet Chevy, a secret from my grandmother, and a Cedric still in pieces.

And it was a good day.