California guys have it so good, (In addition to California girls) Options

[michel richard]

In the process of doing some work on my new-to-me teener. I have documents that show this car was still in California in 2002, and there is very little rust on it.
So yesterday, around 4h30 pm I decide I'm going to do the 5 lug swap. I've got all the parts in the garage from when I sent the old teener to teener heaven.
Jack up the car: The donuts are still there and I'm not concerned that I'm going to punch them through the floor. Put the back on jackstands without any worries either, woohoo ! (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/smilie_pokal.gif)
Now to swap trailing arms, one has to undo some of the toughest nuts on the car: the rear driveshaft nuts, the three bolts that hold the adjustment plate at the outboard end of each trailing arm, plus the inner trailing arm nut.
In the case of this car, you get the proper wrench, lean on it, and bamm, the bolt or nut starts turning ! Three hours later, both trailing arms are replaced. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/clap.gif)
On the cars I'm used to, you start three days ahead of time by repeatedly sraying loose nut everywhere. Then you pull your tools out, spray some more loose nut. Lean on the bolt, utter a few expletives (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/finger.gif) (actually, French and English expletives may not be the right ones, maybe I should have learned German ones long ago). Then you pull out the oxy torch and heat up the bolt. Watch the loose nut stuff burn and hope it does'nt burn the car down. After that there's two or three possible outcomes. Either 1) you pull your drill out and strart drilling the nut parallel with the bolt, just outside of it, and then take a chisel to break the nut (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/smash.gif) or 2) you lean on it a little too much and break the bolt (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/headbang.gif) or 3) you round the nut over and then go to 1). Actually another solution that can work in some cases is to simply hacksaw the bolt off. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/sawzall-smiley.gif) This can be very effective. But you have to plan ahead, because this can make a part unusable :- (
If you're dealing with a bolt instead of a nut, the choices are: 1) you break the bolt (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/headbang.gif) 2) you round it. In both cases, you then pull out your drill and you drill the length of the bolt. If it is high grade steel, you have to run to the hardware store and buy hard, expensive, coblat bits (notice the plural - you will break a couple of bits).
In addition, if you're working on the trailing arm adjustment plate bolts, and you're on your back under the car, you will breathe and eat rust particles throughout the exercise.
Once all this is done and the parts are apart, two days have gone by. You can pull a case of beer out. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/beer.gif) (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/beer3.gif) The next step is to inventory the damage you have done and to figure out how you will fix it - not obvious in the case of the dreaded trailing arm plate bolts. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/bs.gif)

The moral of the story is: working on California cars is more fun but I don't know if working on California girls is more fun than working on our own local French girls.

Cheers.

Michel Richard
914/6 2.2E MFI