Halleluja, I got the Neon together after its head (gasket) job, and it's purring like a kitten.
The next step toward daily driveability is to make sure the brakes are up to snuff. The car's been out of commission for awhile, and the Martian landscape has come home to my brake rotors. There's mucho rust.
My options as I see them, from cheapest on up:
Simply drive that old rust away-should work short term, brakes will likely go bad shortly after.
Take apart brakes and lube everything, then proceed as above- May or may not be any better.
Sand paper the rust off the rotors, and hope for the best.
Get one of those brake rotor hones and a drill, zip the rust off, reassemble and hope for the best.
Have rotors turned @ $15 apiece (money I don't have)
New rotors @ roughly $30 each (even more money that I lack)
I intend to make this car my DD and sell the Buick, so eventually it'll just get new pads and rotors, but for now I'm looking for the cheapest, safest fix. I'm assuming dangerously that I only find rust, rotors, and usable pad thickness, so assuming that, are there any other options that I've overlooked?
The rotors look good save for the rust, so I'm hoping to "grassroots" it right, and get another 10K out of what I've got. After that I'll probably have money to just do fresh rotors, or maybe sell the car.