How my Lathe is earning its keep!

I had given my beautiful, blonde daughter a car for her 18th birthday. A '92 Chevy Cavalier. Back a month or so ago, she was involved in a wreck. Coming around a curve on the interstate, an 18 wheeler was on the shoulder of the road, but partially sticking out into the lane. The car ahead of her stopped, she stopped, but the car behind her didn't, pushing her into the car in front. Fortunately, no one was hurt. The insurance from the guy in back offered me $1600 to total the car and haul it away, or $1500 and I keep the car. Most of the damage was body panels that I was able to straighten sufficiently to be passable. Headlight assemblies were bought at the junkyard for $80. A new motor mount was $25. So far all was going well. Unfortunately, when the motor mount broke, it caused the retainers to come off of the shift cables at the transmission linkage. These can not be found at salvage yards, nor bought at auto parts stores. These can only be had from the Chevy dealer. But ONLY as part of the shift cable set. They would not sell them seperately. Each shift cable set is $125 and I needed two of them. After days and days of trying (unsuccessfully) to find an alternative source I decided to make my own. All it would consist of is a bushing, a retaining washer and a C clip to hold the cable end to the post. I ordered a package of UHMW plastic from Woodcraft and when it arrived my son and I drilled a hole to fit the post, made a jam chuck to fit the hole and turned the plastic to size. A washer and a C clip from the local borg and an hour or so of contorting to get the cable seated and the car is now drivable. Thank goodness for ingenuity and tools to make things work! I used about one dollar worth of plastic and my lathe and saved over $250!!! Gotta go now and set my son up to turn something from wood. He seemed to like the process. Sorry for the lengthy post, but had to gloat. James