Interesting. Well I got the M14 triple square now so I might get to try my hand at the brakes tomorrow but first to get the engine bay back together and the car running, lol. I didn't mean that taking the caliper
off would make any difference, just wondering if moving it
out with the extensions might not reduce the bend a bit. Will have to see. Will let you know how it goes.
Didn't bother removing the cowl thing, and I think I'll be able to get away with that on the driver's side too.
Well I did make a small crack in the plastic but was able to get the driver's side done without removing it there either--wipers stayed in place!
I ended up having an even worse time getting the driver's side strut pinch/collar bolt out though. Again the nut came off fine but the bolt just would not turn. After stupidly using the 3/8" drive bit to try to turn it (hey it worked on the other side!) it rounded it out too much that even after I got the correct M14 triple square it wasn't going to work. So... I popped out the outer tie-rod end with a puller, and removed the strut assembly with the knuckle completely. Placed that on my driveway and drilled out the stupid bolt enough to get an easy-out bit hammered in and tried to turn it that way. Keep in mind now this thing is in a collar it's
not threaded but twisting it seems to break the rust up. Well not this one because not even the damn easy-out would budge it--unbelievable! Before I broke
that thing off in the bolt, I pulled it off and just proceeded to take my rage out on this thing with a hammer
Just smashing the **** out of the bolt until it
finally gave way and started sliding out of the collar. Then, even with the spreader the
strut wouldn't come out of the collar, so I left the spreader in and smashed the strut out too LOL! Holy crap that was ridiculous! Gotta love how the videos on youtube go so smoothly
They should have made the bolt collar slightly bigger so this kind of thing doesn't happen. Anyway once I got it all back together and tightened up, I sprayed down the bolts, with that one in particular, with a lot of Fluid Film. My idea is to Fluid Film all that suspension stuff at every seasonal wheel changeover, that way this doesn't happen again (hopefully)! At least the KWs themselves are stainless.
Since I'm likely not going to be able to get the rear shocks out myself, I set the front KWs to just about their max height, since I didn't want it to be too low in front with the rear at stock height. I figured the highest height on the KWs is
supposed to be lower than stock but when I lowered the car down, I found the thing is higher than stock now :laugh: So I guess that'll be good for winter (which is almost here mind you); but, will have to adjust the height again tomorrow.
Almost done this stuff...almost!