I needed to check under the hood.
I popped it open, and my heart dropped. Two of the pistons were missing and one of them was damaged. I had a feeling that one of the cars would have a similar sized piston. I went back to the ZAZ's and popped their hoods open.
My method of checking a car battery was a little dangerous, so if the pistons were a problem, I needed to resolve it first before I try and electrocute myself.
I popped open the hood and was blessed the first ZAZ had an almost perfectly intact engine. All I needed to do was to get some kind of jack and lift the car up so I could get them.
This would serve as practice for my ability to repair cars, if I messed this up, I would need to practice on the other one, as I don't want to risk messing up the Volga. In the auto repair manual, it said that I needed to take off the oil pan, but I might need that oil, so I ran back to the house and grabbed a big bowl that looked like it could hold about half a gallon of liquid. I unscrewed the cap and let the oil pour out. About half the bowl was filled and then I put it away. No more oil was coming out so I went and took the oil pan off the engine.
The I pushed the piston and I figured put I couldn't pull it out so I go out from under the ZAZ and set up a wire and picked up the piston from the top and pulled it out. After I snagged the first piston I such the wire through the other but it immediately snapped. I needed to get another wire and push it out a little so it's easier to get.
As I pulled out the second piston I was really pleased as both of them had a good rod and a good piston head.
I took the two freshly fished out pistons and went back to the black Volga.
I grabbed another bowl and emptied the oil. The bowl almost filled all the way up, but stopped almost all the way to the top. I removed the bowl and set it out in front of the car.
Removing the oil pan I could see the piston and it was worse than I had thought. The piston heads was actually broken in half and extremely damaged.
I slowly pushed one out and the other half didn't move. I got up and reached my had into the engine and grabbed the end of the piston. I pulled it out and reached in and grabbed the other half.
After examining the piston I decided it would be ok to replace the piston with these new ones.
I quickly fished out the second piston and replaced them both.
If I messed this up it would be terrible because I would ruin the engine and ruin the car. Now I needed to do one last check. The battery. For the battery I placed a wire just above the connector for the battery, when I was ready to test, I would drop it.
If there were sparks, the battery wasn't dead if there weren't any, it was dead and I had wasted my time majorly. I dropped the wire, and sparks, went, flying. I had never been so excited to almost die from electrocution.
I grabbed the oil from the car and poured it back in, I checked and the cars oil was about half full, so I brought the other cars oil to top off the motor oil.
I got into the car and found the keys in the center console. I placed them in the ignition and made sure it was in neutral. I started the ignition and the car roared to life. The air conditioning turned on and I quickly ran out and opened all the door as a black dust was spewed out.
I let it run until the dust stopped coming out and switched the AC to a air recycling system and not the intake.
I made sure all the dust was out before I started to figure out how to drive this baby out of its makeshift garage. I guessed that I could turn the cars steering to the left and slowly pull out. So I got in and executed the maneuver successfully. I put the brake on and got out to make sure I could get around the building. I thought it would have been a close fit. So I hopped back in, and pulled forward, slowly watching both sides creep past me as I slowly turned to the clearing. I slipped through barely and parked in between the two rows of cars.
I went and disassembled the rest of the cars to see if there was anything I could salvage.
After about two hours I left with only an extra spark plug and another piston for my engine. I threw them into the front console for the passenger seat.
I quickly drove out and left the car graveyard and drove it back to the cabin slowly, so I wouldn't damage it.
As soon as the clearing came into view I drove in and made a 180° turn and pointed the car outwards. I popped the trunk and was lucky that nothing, or no one, was in the trunk. I took all my stuff off my bike and moved it into the trunk except for six important books, those I brought into the car and placed the journal in the seat next to me with the ammo, and firearm maintenence manuals.
The rest of the books I put into the center console and continued to load up the car. I went inside and grabbed all the flat sheets and put them into the car in the back seats.
I unhooked my cart from the bike and wrapped it in 2 fitted sheets.
After I loaded everything up I brought the rest of the extra food into my car and boiled up some rice and cooked some meat. I ate a few hours later as the sun began to set. I went back to the car and covered the car with some light dirt and some branches along the tires and hood. I went inside and fell asleep, no light were on to avoid detection from anyone on the road.