As much as I like to work on my cars, and try to do simple maintenance and improvements myself, I have a knack for having simple things turn into a huge pain in the ***.

Today I headed over to the Hobby Shop to install some Whiteline heavy duty rear swaybar mounts so I can crank up the rear bar to max. Four bolts off, four bolts on, easy as pie, right? Uhhhh, no.

I already knew that one of the bolts is blocked by the fuel tank fill pipe, making it the hardest part of the job, so I started out by loosening the fill pipe up as much as possible to give a little bit of freedom of movement. Got the socket on there started removing the bolt and *snap* - the f**kin' thing snapped off! So about 2/3 of the bolt is still in there.

I of course didn't have any tools other than what I anticipated needing, but the Hobby Shop had a drill and some EZ-Outs. I had to completely remove the fuel tank fill pipe to get the drill in there, and I was sure that was going to screw me, but it turned out I was able to re-install that without any problems. Of course, they didn't have the right size drill bits (I'm sure other users had already snapped off all the small ones, since they were all missing). So, I called my bro and he came by to give me his drill bit set. Unfortunately, no dice on the EZ-Outs - the bolt wouldn't budge. I then tried completely drilling out the broken off portion of the bolt, but my initial hole was slightly off center so as I got bigger in size I was going to start screwing up the threads rather than just drilling out the bolt. I stopped at that point, hopefully before I caused any permanent damage to the threads.

I have a set of bolt extractors, so tomorrow I'll take everything back apart and try those. If that fails, then I'll just drill the damn thing out and helicoil it.

Screw you, car, you won't get the best of me!!!

Pat Olsen
'97 Legacy 2.5GT sedan

 

I need a new head.

 

Dont give in Pat!

 

I'm an ASE certified master mechanic. I managed to make a 5 hour clutch job take 8 hours today and I'm still not finished. DAMMIT.

Just one of those days. Happens to the best of us.

(Thanks for the help Wes!)
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It has been a week and my car isn't complete yet. I can now say that I put sweat, blood, tears, along with three stitches on my forehead while working on my car.

P.S. Much thanks to my friends who rushed me to the hospital and waited six hours in the waiting room.

 

dude! what's been going on!??

 

If they have, in fact, denied us the racing tomorrow, I'll come down and help out.

 

Thanks for the offer, Bro. I think we *should* be okay though.

I hope there's not TOO more to do. The new clutch/pressure plate/flywheel are already in. I just have to figure out what is keeping the trans. 1/2" from being flush with the motor (my thoughts are the pilot bearing) and stab that sucker home.

The rest should be candy. Except for some stuff that was stripped before I got to it.
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I learned the hard way. Don't strip an engine without the engine being secured on an engine stand.

removing the cam pulleys + engine sitting on the ground + a three foot long breaker bar = trip to the hospital and three stitches