All new shocks.
Seriously. All four. And tonight I remembered why I didn’t change the rears last time.
I mean, it’s not that it’s hard, it’s just a pain.
First, because I have a class 3 hitch, I have to drop the spare. Well, you don’t have to, but it makes accessing the upper end much easier.
So I stick a 3/8″ drive extension in the hole and lower the spare winch. I lie down and wrestle the spare out. and slide it out of the way.
I have an impact. I do. I have a bigass air compressor. Firing up the AC for a couple bolts just seems wasteful to me.
So I grab the wrenches, a 13, a 13 deepwell, a 15, and a 17.
It’s stupid sick that I remember the wrench sizes.
I slide under the truck and smack myself in the head with the spare winch.
I tuck it out of the way over a frame member and start loosening the bottom bolt on the driver’s shock. The bolt starts turning so I put the breaker bar on the back and use the rachet on the front. The fact that I have had to do this means that the bolt is spinning, and it’s just not ordinary spinning but it has rusted to the center sleeve of the shock and is going to be a problem. I don’t know this, I just feel it, and it turns out, of course, that I’m right.
I get the nut off and give it an exploratory tap with the lead hammer. The spare winch falls down and hits me in the left temple. I tuck it up over the frame. I move to the upper bolts and loosen them, dropping one directly in my mouth, barely avoiding chipping a tooth. I spit the bolt out and the spare winch falls and hits me in the forehead. I take out the second bolt while the spare winch abrades the side of my face. I tuck it up over the frame and the shock, released from the top mount, falls on my shoulder, and the spare winch falls on my head.
I tuck the winch up over the frame and move to the other side, and then start hammering at the lower bolt. The winch falls down and doesn’t hit my head but it smacks my elbow every time I swing the hammer.
The lower shock bolt is rusted inside the shock sleeve. THis is a common occurrence, and it’s a giant pain in theass. I hit the bastard with a 6 lb lead hammer thirty times before it comes loose, and then I drift it out the last bit with a punch.
I slide back underneath and tuck the spare winch up over the frame and slip the new shock lower in place, securing it with the bolt, and cut the retainer and guide it up to the upper mount. I put the bolts in place and twist the shock a bit to hold them there while I wedge my hand in up over the evaporative fuel cannister so I can get the nuts in place As I do the spare winch slides off the frame and smacks me in the left eye, which I close just in time, and rolls around my head where the spring snags a tuft of ear hair, pulling it out painfully. I tighten everything up and tuck the spare winch up over the frame.
I repeat the process more opr less verbatim on the right side, and this time I develop a sore spot on my upper lip from repeated contact with the rusty edge of the spare winch, which I can now tuck over a frame rail by feel alone, and then check both shocks for snugness. I notice the right wheel seal is leaking, whcih i know I will have to remedy soon. And it is a loverly pain in the buttocks. I slide back out, catching my chin on the bumper and knocking the spare winch off the frame and smacking myself in the head.
I wrestle the spare back into place and the spare which, which has effectively been having it’s way with my head for a half hour, is now impossible to grasp. I fight with it while balancing the tire on the inside of my left forearm and finally get the spare winch threaded through the hole. I use the 3/8″ extension to lift the spare into place, slide back underneath to confirm it’s in place, and whack my head once more for good measure on the sharp, rusty edge of the spare winch.
barely bleed, because I apparently have Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura. Based on the vowels you’d have to buy to get those words right on Wheel of Fartune,(sic) you’d think I was a goner, but it apparently means my antibodies have started to attack my platelets and my spleen is busy eating them. At least my doc thinks that’s what’s going on. My spleen is a bit sensitive, but the idea that I, mr calm nature, might be a little splenetic… never occurred to me.
That was my evening. Hows bayou?
Update: For anyone who might not know, the spare winch is a short cable winch used to raise and lower the spare tire. Here’s a picture.
26 comments Og | Uncategorized
Hmm….. sounds all too familiar.
Glad I’m not the only one.
They say that if you bleed over a project, even just a drop or two, it’s bound to work. Lets hope that holds true.
“…tuck the spare winch up over the frame…and the spare winch falls on my head.”
Heh.
I’ve had days like that too.
It sometimes feels like insanity, doing the same thing over & over & expecting different results…
Now I know why I take all my vehicles to a mechanic. Come to think of it, he seems to have some scar tissue on his face.
Hope you have a smooth ride now.
I recently ran a self-drilling sheet-rock screw right through my left index finger. The blood flow was fkn unbelievable. The lintwife forced me to see a doctor to get a tetnus shot after she asked when I last had one and I asked her how long we’d been married.
The doc asked me why I thought it necessary to do something that stupid and I said, “Well doc, I figured life wasn’t tough enough as is so I figured I’d make it a little tougher.”
But you wanna know the REALLY sick part? Right after the screw went through and the blood started gushing…. I thought of Og and this blog. Now THAT’S fkn sick.
rotflmfao!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, that cuts it. I now dub thee, Wily E Coyote!
Oh shit, I am sorry, but I truly laffed out loud!
Yeah, I go to a mechanic also. But I still train my own horses!
LOL
Y’know, Og, you could wire that winch out of the way while working. Or not.
nah. I usually just tuck it up over a frame member.
I’m not going stop bitching that my car was built to be worked on by small, contortionist dwarfs.
But next the rant ends in “…but at least I’m not og.”
hey- this was a GOOD repair
This post reminds me why I like the semi autistic, mechanical genius kid who lives next door. He works for peanuts, has no concept of time and really likes working on my old pickup.
Next time you’ll fire that compressor up. I would have and yes, I’ve had a nut pop me on one of my front teeth, which is a feeling all to itself.
I got 150K on my gas shocks that seem to ride okay. Think I should go ahead and change them out?
The thing I discovered, was the shocks seem to develop a set, and then a narrow band of wear so they don’t work as well at normal height.
I have now put three sets of shocks on the back, and four on the front, I tend to try to do them around 60k. the nice thing with autozone and their lifetime warranty.
The cure for rusted-in-the-sleeve suspension bolts is to put anti-seize on them before you put ’em in.
I use anti-seize on just about goddamned everything that might possibly could maybe someday get exposed to the merest vicinity of moisture. If I didn’t have three tubes of the stuff stashed in various places around the garage I’d have long since bought the 16-oz bottle from Advance Auto….
I buy it in quart bottles. Copper based for heat, graphite based for non heat applications.
“nah. I usually just tuck it up over a frame member.”
Perhaps I am just easily amused but I damn near fell off my chair when I read that!
Genius, pure Genius!
I buy my anti-sieze in quart bottles as well. The label on the bottle reads,”Milk of Magnesia”. I learned about it from my crazy uncle who’s a diesel mechanic. He uses it for diesel exhaust system fasteners. You know,the ones listed in the dictionary under “Rusted in Place”.
I got to the end before I realized the “spare winch” was the winch for the spare tire. I thought you had nestled an extra cable winch on top of your rear axle in case, you know, your regular winch on your front bumper didn’t work.
And that insight into my mechanical skilz is why I just drive the Blazer around the block every week, and commute in the beater Lumina.
Felt great to get those new shocks on, though, didn’t it, Lumpyhead?
Indeed it did!!
My tire secures the same way. I just call it a “spare tire cable”.
You know what I really need? A spare wench.
Key is gonna tune you up for that.
Funny story!I always just run the spare winch back up without the spare on it to get it out of the way. I have had the bolts so rusted they had to be blown out with a torch.
Og,
I’ve got a spare winch on my old truck (1988 Chevy). Never knew how it worked until I had a flat tire at an Indy Home Depot. Had no owner’s manual either. I thought I would never figure it out. Weird way to store a tire.
That story is why I was happy to give my mechanic his asking price to replace all four shocks AND springs on the evil Merkur. The fronts are MacPherson struts and the rear-end is a live axle…
Oh, and I almost forgot. I’m still using the original can of Never-Seez that I ripped off from the boys at the newspaper years ago. I use it on anything that bolts together that I plan on having to take apart.