Ndoro Yadda and I added one more project in our foolish quest to become somekind of renaissance women. It was to ressurect The Rage back to life. The poor coupe had been out of commission since September last year. Due to financial constraint, as well as time, to get it all fixed up, the three of us managed to synchronize our schedules to go around with only one working car. It had been too much of an inconvenience lately, so we decided to fix The Rage no matter what.

The real wake up call, however, was something that could only be described as the weirdest act of vandalism ever known in College Station, TX. It happened just last week on the wee morning of Friday the 13th.


Anyhow, back to the ressurection project. Our reasoning was simple. Since The Rage failed to be started even with the help of jumping, the problem(s) should be related to the starting mechanism of the engine. It was either the sparkplugs, the starter, the alternator or simply the battery. The cheapest component, the sparkplugs, had been changed earlier. However, it still lead to a status quo condition. So, off we went to a shopping spree to the nearest Autozone for the remaining parts.

On Thursday morning, after looking at the starter, alternator, and the belts arrangement on the engine, we decided it would be a real challenge for the two us to install the new starter and alternator with the assistance of limited tools and a simple jack. At this point, we were ready to tow the car over to our friendly backdoor garage and let them do the dirty work. We decided, however, to install the battery first.

We started with applying generous paste on the terminals and then placing the protector ring. Out of curiosity, Ndoro Yadda started the car. Turned out, the starter and the alternator functioned just as well, the belts started to move, and voila, after several trials, The Rage was back to life. We were startled and petrified at first, but then quickly rejoiced.

The next step was to change the flat tire on the driver side so that we can go around for a test drive. With the help of a neighbor, the spare tire was installed and we were prepared to drive the car down to a tire shop for fixing. There was a problem with the spare tire since it could never be filled to reach enough pressure. Instead of driving all the way down to the store, we just brought the flat tire over.

For some reason, the front side of the car was sinking low, it left not enough room to put the jack on the car frame. We had to put one jack on the back side of the frame to raise the car a little and only then we were able to place the front jack. When enough ground clearance was reached, we started opening the four bolts. One of the bolt, however, was stuck. We tried to squirt some oil somehow. Ndoro Yadda used her foot to put more force on the tire key, when suddenly, that nut went broken. Apparently, when I drove the car to the gas station to fill the spare tire with air, I was already driving it on the rim. It supposedly gave to much force on that one bolt.

We then proceeded to install the fixed tire and then I drove The Rage with remaining three bolts to another shop so that they can replace the broken one. Ndoro Yadda tailgated with the other car, just in case. Other than the bolt treatment, we also had the State Inspection and the oil changing done.

Our weekend has never been this perfect.