Moribund 5KT: seeking advice .. (long)

[Arun & Vimala Rao <avrao@pacbell.net>]

Last week, I was forced to subject my trusty '85 5KT (163K+) to some
fairly grievous privations, as a result of which I now have to make a
decision as to whether to fix the car or put it out to pasture.

The story:
We (self + wife + 2 kids) were airport-bound to go to to Chicago, and on
a mild downhill right-hander connector ramp (from 680S to 580W, for Bay
Area folks).  I was going at my usual brisk pace, but not particularly
fast.  Suddenly, I felt the tail of the car start to swing out.  I
overcorrected, and before I knew it, I was in a good ol' 360-degree
spin.  We ended up facing the wrong way (no one behind us, luckily) with
steam rising from the hood.  I was still more concerned about why I
spun, so the first thing I did after getting the car over to the
shoulder was to look at all the tires -- nothing abnormal there.  We had
to get to airport or risk losing money on our discount tickets, so I
decided to drive the car home to get the van.  By the time we got home,
the engine had overheated, and both oil and coolant warnings were going
off.  Some oil was leaking on to the exhaust manifold, and  smoke was
trailing behind us. With a heavy heart, we took the van and left.  (We
missed the plane anyway, but were lucky to get on the next one).

The car:
I took a look under the hood when I got back: the radiator top hose had
broken off, which immediately explained the coolant loss.  Overheating
had probably caused loss of oil pressure, but there were still a couple
of quarts left in the pan.  I reattached the hose to remaining stub on
the radiator, refilled the coolant and oil and the car started up
seemingly OK.  Took a run round the block: fuel supply apparently shuts
off as soon as I push the throttle more than 1/4 way down.  Dumped the
fault codes (my KH uses the tach): bad coolant temp. sensor, and engine
at maximum retard.  Also, idle is fluctuating up and down regularly
(roughly 2-3 second period), and blue smoke is issuing from the tail
pipe.

Still don't know for sure what caused the spin. My ex-racer colleague
had a plausible theory: the coolant hose broke in the middle of the
turn, dumping coolant on the road, over which my rear wheels then went
-- and slid.  Apparently it happens all the time in racing.

So .. what do you folks think about the prognosis for this car?  My wife
-- ever the voice of reason -- thinks it isn't worth fixing.  The car
*has* served us well for the past 4+ years, and it's getting pretty
ratty.  But on the other hand, I'm hesitant to get rid of a car that I
still enjoy driving (or did).

-Arun

'85 5KT
'91 200Q
'98 navaraC dnarG egdoD