'91 200q not as bad as thought-basic gosh gollies

[Gaidos, A.]

 I went down to the shop to review the basic gosh gollies regarding my
wife's '91 200q rust bucket and the owner of the shop does think the car is
worth repairing. The first thing is the knuckle for the upper rear arm. It
is corroded to the point of being a safety issue. The parking brake cables
and adjuster is a total loss and will need to be replaced. He's not sure if
he can save the exhaust if he needs to remove it to do the work. Next in
line of priority are the front wheel bearings. I knew those were bad,
especially the right front which makes a lot of noise. The two rear shocks
are leaking badly. I didn't notice this but if I keep the car new struts
were in the plan anyway. The original reason I took the car down there was
to replace the ignition switch but to both our surprise it was the starter
that failed. The symptoms seemed to be the switch.
 His general, overall opinion was that he's seen a lot worse corrosion and
that working on this car is easier then buying a new coat. His words. He
also thinks the rear end is going bad but will last forever anyway and we
replaced the gear oil.
 The body panels on the car are fine and motor and running gear are
basically solid. So as I said his overall impression is it is a fine car and
should last for years. That's the first good news I've heard about this car
and it lends a vote of confidence to my wife. Better still it's great to
have found a nice shop locally to me in Santa Cruz county although he's not
crazy about ideas of dropping 20vt motors into 90q20v models. With all the
things I have going on I simply don't have the time to do all the work on
all my cars so this is great news to me.
Anton