The Celebrity has now been gone for about two weeks and I really do miss her quite a bit. At the end of her run she had a little over 240,000km on the odo, The transmission was just about toast, it got 15mpg and the front end bounced up and down like it had some kind of low rider kit installed. But it was a great car!! It got me where I wanted to go and then some. And, boy, was it fun to drive. Fire it up and the 2.8l V-6 fired to life making a sound that no other engine can duplicate. For such a small displacement engine, it sounds very agressive. I mean it is no V-8, but it is the next best damn thing to one!! I don't know if the exhaust note was unique to this car or not, but you could always hear her even with the music turned up and the windows cranked up!!! Now I remember the time that the muffler had a hole in it. Well, shit, did that fucker ever drown out even the loudest music and loudest screams from the passengers demanding me to do something about "that racket". Racket, to me it was GREAT!! I just love the sound of the car sans muffler. It is LOUD, I mean loud enought to make your ears ring, but it was two of the best nights I drove that car. The greatest part was hitting the gas 1/2 way and watching pedestrians turn around and stare at me. In alot of cases you would get looks from drivers too!! Now that you know how much I "loved" this car I have a picture of the front and back of the car and after that I have some stories to tell about what I have done with the car!!!
Goto to the stories
I did this one in my infancy with the car. I don't think I would duplicate it again because of damage that you can do to the transmission. To be blunt, I was out on Darling's Island rd. and stopped on a slight, lengthy incline. I figured that I would see what this car could do!! First I tried just flooring it. This did not work very well as it only produced a slight 'chirp' and then began to move forward in a surge to the 65kph redline in 1st. So I then tried popping the car in 'N' and coasting down the hill a bit. Once I got to about 30kph, (the speedo works in reverse) I popped it into 'D' and floored it! The result was not good. It stalled and refused to start. I cranked it for about 10sec. and was thinking "This is not where I want to be when the car breaks down!!" I then floored the gas and started it. It started with the engine going full tilt. I let off on the gas and she worked fine again.
I thought that I may as well try again, but this time use "less backwards speed before popping it into 'D'" It was a bit wet outside, so I had a bit of slip for the tires to get started on so I knew I could get this to work. So I put her into 'N' again and go it to about 10kph and slipped it into 'D', waited a few seconds for the transmission to 'clunk' into gear and mashed it to the floor. She then proceeded to begin spinning on the wet ashphalt, then you could hear the tires squealing and then the white smoke rising from the right side tire! I continued to plant my foot to the floor until the car gripped the road again about 50feet up.
I turned her around and went back to see what I had left behind. My thoughts were that I left a short mark where I started and maybe heated up the road the rest of the way. This WAS NOT TRUE!!! I actually had left a black strip of rubber about 50ft. long (i didn't measure it) going up the hill. I was shocked that such a car could do such a thing. I also awestruck my other two passengers in the back who said that I better get moving before the neighbour came running out after me. They never did, but that was most definitely the first "fun" thing I did with the celeb that I remember. Kids, don't try this with your parents car, you might just rip out the entire trans. (I got lucky!!)
Some of you may know where this 'turn' is at. If you are on the Golden Grove Road coming from Saint John you will go by a store then a turnoff for "French Village" or whatever it is called now! If you keep going Golden Grove will take you to the highway and eventually out to hampton!! Anyway, I was coming from the highway towards town on Golden Grove road when I decided that I wanted to go back on the highway. Well, in my infancy of driving, I figured that this turn could be done no problem at 50-60kph. The problem is that the turn is actually more than 90degrees. Here is a diagram to give to an idea of what it looks like.
See what I mean. This was not a good idea. I could swear that the car was on three wheels if not two!! I also left behind paw-prints here also. They looked curled as the car screamed around the corner protesting by squealing the tires the whole way!! Again, this I will never do again! A one time, learned my lesson and will know better the next time. So learn from my mistakes and do NOT try the take a corner like that at the speed I did unless you have in your possession an Acura NS-X, or a Ferrari.
Let me set the scene. We have a rainy night and it is about 8pm, so it is dark!! I am driving on Eldersly ave. along the stretch when I decide that I am going to pass a slow moving early 80's olds '98. As I attempt to go by them I see about 5 mid 20's aged men in the car. I then notice that I am not getting by them as quickly as I expected to. I realize that they are RACING me! Well, I am not one the turn put down my guns although with the current weather conditions I really should have. I continued to pass them until I made it in front of them enough to move back into my lane. Great, I have them beat, but then I take a look at the speedo and realize that I am going 120kph!! Well, shit, I laid on the brakes as much as I could without locking them up and then held on for the ride. I figure that I was still going about 100kph when I took the corner. This would have been fine except for the fact that it was wet and my ass end was now hanging out into the other lane!!! It seems I was going I little too fast for the corner and the conditions. Yes, I got the car straighted out and I continued on my way. But, I bet those guys in the olds got a good sight! I can only guess as to how bad the car got out, but I am quite sure that I had it almost completely sideways over both lanes at the worst point. This is yet another thing that I would never do in the rain again.
I will still race ANYONE who attempts to pass me when I am going at least the speed limit. If you try to pass me when I am not going slow, I take that as a challenge and will accept it. I can recall 3 other incidents where I race someone passing me and my record stands at 2-1-1. The tie was when a Camaro tried to pass me and they backed out when a car came the other way. I was beat only once by a Old Cutlass that passed me and continued to up to a speed of 130kph where I backed off because there was a corner approaching and he had NO intention of slowing down. The other time was a hands down winner against a Cavalier that obviously was no V-6. It was on the same Eldersly strip, but this time I had the upper hand. I had this driver on my ass from the Airport into there. I turned quickly onto Eldersly to lose the car as there was traffic coming the other way for a distance. Then I saw that he had cut in too!! I knew then that I had a chase on my hands. I accelerated to 80kph and let him get up to me and make his move. I then floored the car and quickly moved ahead of him. He was very PERSISTENT! Even though I was a car length ahead of him at the end of the stretch, he did not give up until the corner came. I guess he didn't know that bigger cars CAN defeat smaller ones!
We had just went for a nice swim on a cold winter day at the aquatic center and were heading to the mall to pick up some stuff to cook up for supper. I had Tasha up in the front, Kim and Lisa were in the back. As we left I think we were all glad that the good 'ol Celebrity blew out heat within a couple of minutes. This really sucked in the summer but was a godsend in the winter. We figured that we would stay all warm and toasty until we got to the mall. Little did we know that the car was only a few short miles from its demise. It was like 5:05pm on a Friday afternoon and it was about -15c or so. We were driving down Rothesay Ave. when I noticed that the car did not have much power. I dismissed this as due to the cold weather. But not too much later just before the Pizza Hut, that this was not just a power thing, but a POWER FAILURE!! The car stumbled a bit then just quit!! I coasted into the right lane and did a manual steering turn 2 driveways past the Pizza Hut to get off the road.
That was how it all happened, this is the second part, how we got out of the mess. Once I got it in there, I checked it out and tried to turn it over. The battery was dead!!! I called up Tim, who at the time had a car, to come and give me a boost. I knew that the problem was more than the battery, something had to be draining it. All that I was concerned about now was warming up. We had only be waiting about 5 minutes and the windows were already fogging up. We had about 5 people stop and ask if we needed any help. Since Tim was coming to help us, we told them we had someone coming. About 20 minutes later, he showed up. By this time we were frozen, it felt like 2 hours I swear. I did get it going but it was not working very well. I cruised it to Parkway mall and parked it there to avoid the risk of having it die in traffic again. I called my father and naturally he was not impressed. He came and drove it out with my mother following behind. I stayed in town and stayed at a friend's house for the night. My father got it looked at the next day and they told him the alternator was working about 50% capacity. Not Good!! So he got that replaced and it worked fine from them on. Then towards the end of winter, it started losing power again and the battery light would come on indicating that the battery was no charging. It was that damn alternator again, at least this time it was caught before it died on me again. If something goes wrong on that car, it happens with me driving it!!!
This is just the beginning of my stories and I have more here as I type them up. I hope you find them interesting and if not maybe they will teach you what NOT to do with a 1988 Chev Celebrity