[M_a_t_t]

I had gotten it rigged up again, but the passenger side broke (again) due to rust. I ordered the trailing arm for a 94 protege because the ford's are unavailable and the early 90's protege used the same body/chassis. I tried to take the bolt out of the front for the trailing arm and it was just too rusty. The busing was still pretty good though. After looking at the car in more detail though it's just too rusty to try to keep it longterm. So rather than risk having to weld new mounts on I cut the old and new trailing arm in half and bolted them together. So far everything seems fine. I think right now my plan is to just continue driving it until something really breaks or if it just gets really bad. Then I want to buy another one, but this time from somewhere with no rust.

The saddest part: I removed the tail. It was getting tattered due to poor material choices and I opted to just remove it. I wasn't sure how much of a difference it made, but WOW I just got back from my moms (previous record of 48 MPG US) and although I didn't do any EOC I did plenty of coasting in N and I still only managed ~35. Usually at the time of day and traffic level I could easily get ~38 with no EOC. I can't say I noticed it slowing down faster, but the mpg for the trip is really eye opening.

Immediately after removing the tail:


Putting the trunk and lights back in: