Much as I like to get my parts at the junkyard, I tend to feel a little uncomfortable using junkyard brake hoses. Anyway, there's been a real Spridget drought at my local self-service yards.

So, I got on the horn with and ordered me up some new front and rear hoses (plus new wheel cylinders). Because Project House Hell has been so all-consuming in recent months, has been sitting untouched for quite a while, silently . Meanwhile, the Civic is due for a new timing belt and I need to figure out what's causing that "Lean Condition Bank 1" error code in the Crown Vic.

You know how you kick yourself over the Car That Got Away? That cheap '70 Chrysler 300H I didn't…

It starts and moves under its own power, so all it needs to get on the street is the brakes and a few dozen nickel-dime fixes. And hey, it turns out it's not really a '67 after all! Actually, it's sort of a FrankenSprite, patched together from the corpses of at least three other cars; I discovered that the brake plumbing in the chassis comes from an early-to-mid-60s car, and I'd been wondering how a '67 managed to get a single-reservoir master cylinder in a year that the meddling federal government mandated the Communist-inspired dual system. Stay tuned for news of the PCH 's first drive… one of these weeks.