Hello friends! So, here's the story. I used to drive a 1999 Mercury Mystique. Great car. Super great on milage. Very reliable, but ultimately gave up the ghost at 215k miles. Bottom was so rusty that I could barely jack up the back end of it! And the glorious illumination of the check engine light was shining bright, and the intermediate exhaust pipe was rotted out. So, time for some new wheels!
I hatched a plan. On my '99 Mystique I had just bought new tires, had new plugs, 5 sets of windsheild wipers, new master cylinder, new calipers, new set of rear drum brakes, newish rotors. You get the idea, I had some really solid hardware left on the car, even though the frame was rotted to heck, the transmission was leaking, and the my dashboard looked like a christmas tree. So, my idea was to get as similar a car as possible, hopefully with ~100k miles on it, swap over all my good parts, and poof, newish car! I found this guy on craigslist for a grand.
I didn't look too hard at it because I was in desperate need of wheels. It drove well enough, but it looked like it had been sitting for a while. OK, so I'm going to have to do a few things, but who cares? I'll learn about cars and get this baby on the road! So far, I've changed out the front control arms, put new front brake calipers on, changed out the rear drum brake cylinders/pads, and swapped out one cracked headlight. Not so bad? It gets me to work so no big deal.
Now I've encountered three new problems. The alternator gave up, my antifreeze is turning to white steam from somewheres under the engine when I drive it, and my brake line blew! Wahoo!
So, I have decided to try and turn this into the most positive experience as I can. While working on this "piece of junk" as I'm not naming it, or POJ for short, I'm going to chronicle all of my anguish. This should have a multi-pronged effect:
1) Hopefully I can turn all my stress into a little bit of humor, and focus on trying to make entertaining youtube videos instead of driving myself crazy when parts on POJ fail.
2) So, I know some of the basics about cars. I know how to change the oil, and I know how to do the brakes, and the tires. Other than that I'm learning quite a bit as I go along, but I do enjoy a challenge, so I'm hoping that I can try learn something and pass it along to the rest of the world.
3) I have noticed that there are a scarcity of Mercury Mystique videos on youtube. Not everything I'd like to see is up here, so if I can help out my fellow man with some issues, that would certainly make me feel like this is worth it in some capacity.
4) My video chronicle is also partially for me. If any of these parts give up again in the future, I can go back and take a look at what I did way back when and remember exactly how everything is supposed to go!
So, this is my journey. I hope you enjoy the ride, have a laugh or two, and if you're at roughly the same level as I am with cars, maybe we'll learn a few things from each other along the way.
DISCLAIMER: I feel like I have to put this on everything. I am not in any way affiliated with Mercury nor am I a certified mechanic. I'm a do-it-yourselfer who relies heavily on intuition, youtube, a manual, and my father-in-law. I am willing to show the rest of the world what I tried to make things work. I'm not promising that it will be the same for you, or that these fixes are sanctioned in any way. Please don't sue me.
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