Kill me now...
What supposed to have been a leisurely 3-4 hours of removing the drivers side Tie Rod, remounting the calipers, mounting new ceramic pads, and slotted rotors turned into a 9 hour ordeal. Super Tricked-out WRX Man came by to help out. The problem was the driver-side Tie Rod....the lock nut, which was supposed to have been torqued to 30NM was seized to the Jam nut. After hammering the nut for an hour, penetroling the bolt half a dozen times, situating our wrenches in every conceivable way to get better leverage, and tag teaming the sum bitch, we still could not break it.
After lengthy deliberation, we decided that the best way to get maximum leverage on the bolt was to remove everything around it...ie. the coil-over, upper control arms, and coil-over hat....the shit that took Rave-Boy and I all day Saturday to get on the car!!
So out it want...back to square one.
After removing it, we clearly got a much better angle on the bolt and started beating the shit out of it...yes I'm swearing a bit more than usual. After an hour of palm blistering, muscle quivering effort, we gave up. We had to get a professional to break it.
At that point, WRX dude left and I took a break to eat a late lunch and have a beer. My wife got home and the neighbors come by to check on my progress. After an hour break, I got to finishing the other side, which finished smoothly. I felt a bit rejuvenated by my progress on the passenger side and decided to try freeing the bolt one more time. After several minutes of careful planning, I contorted my body within the wheel-well, pinched on both adjustable wrenches on to both bolts in such a way that I can get a good 5 inches of hammer travel to smack the end of the wrench in an effort to break the nut loose. I busted out my dad's 22 oz. Black Rhino hammer, wrapped the wrench handle to reduce the sting on my hands, and hammered away until I ran out of END and delved into STUN. After giving it a good 50 whacks, it started to break!! Then voila, it just spun off the thread like a top! Give Praise and Thanks...I got emotional and religious for a bit afterwards.
So with that out of the way, I had to put everything back....with anti-seize and synthetic grease on EVERYTHING this time. After 9 hours, I had to stop. I'm not quite finished yet; still got to do the calipers, rotors, pads, bleed, and bed, but I'll bust that out tonight without problems...I hope.
After lengthy deliberation, we decided that the best way to get maximum leverage on the bolt was to remove everything around it...ie. the coil-over, upper control arms, and coil-over hat....the shit that took Rave-Boy and I all day Saturday to get on the car!!
So out it want...back to square one.
After removing it, we clearly got a much better angle on the bolt and started beating the shit out of it...yes I'm swearing a bit more than usual. After an hour of palm blistering, muscle quivering effort, we gave up. We had to get a professional to break it.
At that point, WRX dude left and I took a break to eat a late lunch and have a beer. My wife got home and the neighbors come by to check on my progress. After an hour break, I got to finishing the other side, which finished smoothly. I felt a bit rejuvenated by my progress on the passenger side and decided to try freeing the bolt one more time. After several minutes of careful planning, I contorted my body within the wheel-well, pinched on both adjustable wrenches on to both bolts in such a way that I can get a good 5 inches of hammer travel to smack the end of the wrench in an effort to break the nut loose. I busted out my dad's 22 oz. Black Rhino hammer, wrapped the wrench handle to reduce the sting on my hands, and hammered away until I ran out of END and delved into STUN. After giving it a good 50 whacks, it started to break!! Then voila, it just spun off the thread like a top! Give Praise and Thanks...I got emotional and religious for a bit afterwards.
So with that out of the way, I had to put everything back....with anti-seize and synthetic grease on EVERYTHING this time. After 9 hours, I had to stop. I'm not quite finished yet; still got to do the calipers, rotors, pads, bleed, and bed, but I'll bust that out tonight without problems...I hope.
posted by supergoober at
10:48 AM
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