not puzzled anymore

["Greg Woodard" <gwoodard@ndsuext.nodak.edu>]

I would like to thank everyone that sent me info and suggestions.  
I never did solve what appeared to be a heat related problem with
an 87 w/ 1.8lt..

However since my son parked the car upside down in a rather deep
and steep ditch, it doesn't seem to be a problem anymore.  The bad
news is that there is little salvage value left.  EVERY body panel is
sprung out of shape.  

The good news is that no one was hurt, the only blood was when
my son cut his finger trying to get his CD head unit out.  My son 
is a firm believer in seat belts.  This is one of the very few times
that he was not wearing his seat belt.  As luck would have it neither 
was his passenger.  As the car began to roll they both turned to the 
middle of the car and tucked their heads down (I don't think they 
could have done this with their seat belts on).  The top of the car 
was crushed to where it almost touches the head restraints.  Since 
both of them are well over 6' tall, I think this would have had a 
very different outcome, had they not been able to duck.

The rest of the story.

This happened when we were moving my parents to their new home.
To get there we were taking a short cut on a gravel road.  There is a 
small  town which had paved its street (not streets), all three 
blocks of it.  They have dug deep drainage ditches right up to the 
side of the road.  The gravel was no problem, but the unmarked 
transition to pavement was a bit slippery.  My son was doing less 
than 20 MPH when he was litterally blown off the road by a gust of 
wind.  (verified by his mother who was right behind him, and almost 
in the ditch on top of him).  They didn't feel so bad when the state 
trooper slid past and was almost a full block past them before 
he got stopped, also almost in the drain.  Just for the record my 
son's car was car number four, to get TOTALLED in that ditch that 
afternoon.  The front drive shaft and PART of the transfer case for a 
new jeep were still there.

Also the trooper that was there was retiring in 2 days.  This was the 
first time that he had to list contributing factors as none, accident 
unavoidable.  He also gave my son a stern talking to about wearing 
his seat belt, and concluded by saying that had he had it on this 
time he would most likely have suffered sever head injuries.

Greg