Life was fine and dandy for about 2 weeks. The AC worked, and with the slave cylinder and a new clutch hose (to replace the one that had blown out and leaked my fluid) the clutch felt great. During this time, I had a slight screech from my rear passenger side wheel. I didn't think much of it till it got to be a loud grind. I got out one day to inspect the wheel after noticing I had a serious case of brake fade. "Son of a bitch! Fuck!" It turned out I had a frozen caliper and the sound it was making was from the pad being worn down to the indicators. Not only was the rotor hot as hell, but I was running out of time in FL.
Body work was in progress for the Prelude. With all these recent problems and the car covered in spots of primer, I threw my hands up in the air and gave up on the notion of taking the Prelude back to MTU. It served me well, only leaving me stranded once when the distributer rotor's screw came loose. I respect that but this nickle and dime shit was just ridiculous. I searched the Autotrader and picked up a slightly used Nissan 4x4 (which has oversized tires and a 2.4 I4 engine) which should be more practical in the snow and the forests of the U.P. The topper is butt ugly, but it's practical. Hopefully it might help me avoid cops--if its slowness doesn't. And so, after a grand total of 159,560 miles (8/11/2003), the Prelude sits in the garage waiting for me to return to fix it and eventually sell it. |
