General Information
Having always been a Mopar lover, my previous vehicle was a 1998 Dodge Intrepid ES, which I owned for about 12 years and had done all sorts of things to. (Mods etc.)
Then I was going through a rough period of my life, fell on some hard times, and ended up having to sell it
I still kick myself in the ass for letting that car go... I do miss it!
See my Intrepid ES here.
But, with my chin up, and looking forward, it came time to find another vehicle. I had about $1800 in my pocket to spend, and I started looking. Scouring the classifieds, Autotrader, and Craigslist, I found plenty of rice burners and various domestic cars that didn't interest me at all. I was starting to get depressed! Then after about 3-4 days of searching, she popped up on Craigslist for sale right around the corner - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba - $1900 - I couldn't believe how rust-free the car looked in the couple pictures in the ad! I called the number, and arranged to come look at it the next morning.
I showed up at the address the following morning and met with the seller; an older fella (about 70) who had the car stored in an old shed/garage building. After walking around the car a few times, starting her up, and taking her for a test drive around the block, I asked if he'd take $1500. We ended up shaking hands at $1600, and I became the new proud owner of this 1980 Chrysler Cordoba with the 318 and 2 bbl carburetor.
The lean burn conversion was done years ago by the previous owner.
~Purchased by me on February 15th, 2017~
Approximately 2 weeks into owning the car, the transmission decided to go out! Apparently, the PO used the car to tow a travel trailer or something as evident by the trailer hitch receiver that I pretended I didn't see on the car...
No worries though, I put her in the shop and had the 904 professionally rebuilt, and now have a 2 year/24k mile warranty starting 3/5/17
Weeks 3 & 4, I started having stalling/no re-start issues, which I originally mis-diagnosed as fuel delivery issues. I did find a vacuum port that was supposed to be plugged (from the lean burn conversion) that was wide open and sucking in air. I fixed that, and replaced the fuel filter and it seemed to be running great again. Then, a few days later, she started acting up again! This time, I decided to check for spark when she wasn't wanting to start... and discovered there was NONE! So I replaced the coil.. it was also during this time that I discovered that the car had the wrong battery in it, so I bought the correct one and got the HD (police/taxi #27) version. STILL no spark though, so after doing a ton of reading here, in the factory service manuals, and with the help of AJ, BudW, and a few other members here on the site, I figured out what the problem was... the ECU. Bought and replaced that, and haven't had any issues at all since!
Then I was going through a rough period of my life, fell on some hard times, and ended up having to sell it
I still kick myself in the ass for letting that car go... I do miss it!See my Intrepid ES here.
But, with my chin up, and looking forward, it came time to find another vehicle. I had about $1800 in my pocket to spend, and I started looking. Scouring the classifieds, Autotrader, and Craigslist, I found plenty of rice burners and various domestic cars that didn't interest me at all. I was starting to get depressed! Then after about 3-4 days of searching, she popped up on Craigslist for sale right around the corner - 1980 Chrysler Cordoba - $1900 - I couldn't believe how rust-free the car looked in the couple pictures in the ad! I called the number, and arranged to come look at it the next morning.
I showed up at the address the following morning and met with the seller; an older fella (about 70) who had the car stored in an old shed/garage building. After walking around the car a few times, starting her up, and taking her for a test drive around the block, I asked if he'd take $1500. We ended up shaking hands at $1600, and I became the new proud owner of this 1980 Chrysler Cordoba with the 318 and 2 bbl carburetor.
The lean burn conversion was done years ago by the previous owner.
~Purchased by me on February 15th, 2017~
Approximately 2 weeks into owning the car, the transmission decided to go out! Apparently, the PO used the car to tow a travel trailer or something as evident by the trailer hitch receiver that I pretended I didn't see on the car...
No worries though, I put her in the shop and had the 904 professionally rebuilt, and now have a 2 year/24k mile warranty starting 3/5/17
Weeks 3 & 4, I started having stalling/no re-start issues, which I originally mis-diagnosed as fuel delivery issues. I did find a vacuum port that was supposed to be plugged (from the lean burn conversion) that was wide open and sucking in air. I fixed that, and replaced the fuel filter and it seemed to be running great again. Then, a few days later, she started acting up again! This time, I decided to check for spark when she wasn't wanting to start... and discovered there was NONE! So I replaced the coil.. it was also during this time that I discovered that the car had the wrong battery in it, so I bought the correct one and got the HD (police/taxi #27) version. STILL no spark though, so after doing a ton of reading here, in the factory service manuals, and with the help of AJ, BudW, and a few other members here on the site, I figured out what the problem was... the ECU. Bought and replaced that, and haven't had any issues at all since!
