Christmas Trees and Automobiles

The vehicles were lined up deep under the tent the other day, and the air smelled of carbon monoxide.
I rolled into Austin with a tricky alternator, but quickly narrowed the cause down to a wire with worn insulation. Smell of burning plastic, smoke pouring out from under the hood ... the usual symptoms.
D*'s Jeep started running rough as soon as he got out of Iowa, but, trooper that he is, he perservered and made it to Austin.
S* rolled into town in a beautiful Gran Prix - sharp, clean, smooth running, definately not an S* vehicle. Three days later he hit a deer coming back to the tent on Hwy 71 and caved in the front of the car.
The first rainy day we got, we pulled up enough tent stakes to drive the cars into the dry and set to work. No trees yet, so it was easy to turn the tent into a three bay garage.
My truck was an easy fix - a little electrical tape, a few new wires, and I'm running again.
S*'s car is the heart breaker. In a split second it was turned from a sweet little car with decent resale value into something you'd see parked in front of the projects. A few well placed sledge hammer whacks got the hood up, and we set to pulling of odd pieces of plastic. And more odd pieces of plastic. And under all that we found ... odd pieces of plastic. But we got the odd plastic bumper looking halfway presentable, and got the hood so it can be raised. Which is good, because there's an antler hole in the radiator and S* now needs to add water on a regular basis.
D*'s Jeep is proving itself to be somewhat more challenging. All symptoms point to a different cause. We've tested every system on the Jeep - nothing's working well but nothing's so messed up that the little Jeep should be coughing like it does. Nothing to do but keep fiddling with it. I don't worry about D* though. Oil used to spit out the dipstick hole on his old Jeep. He tied a gallon jug to the frame, ran a hose from the dipstick hole to the gallon jug, and stopped every hundred miles to refill his oil. Did that for two years.