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 !
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.
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 (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 or 2) you lean on it a little too much and break the bolt 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. 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 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. 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.

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

Send me a few willing French girls and I will let ya know.....

"Rust" .................... That's a color, right? Being a native of CA, I wouldn't know it if I saw it .................. The Cap'n

Hey Michel, move to SoCal for the 914's, not for the women!. Having lived most of my life in SoCal, I was pleasantly surprised at how many beautiful women I saw when I was in Montreal!

Andy

Hardly lucky in California with all the smog laws we have been stuck with, the recent law change means all 76 and newer cars must be smogged forever, using an expensive dyno test in many areas of the state. Older cars are also vary likely to be sent to a Test Only Center for smog, which is pure hell.

Welcome to nazi califonia,

PS ever see what living near the ocean does to a car????

QUOTE (michel richard @ May 9 2005, 05:19 AM)

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.

I would have to say that French girls would be more fun. California girls have too many fake body parts.


But then again, I dont root for the opposite team. Just an observation an my opinoin.



BTW, Congrates on your new-to-you California teener.

QUOTE (dmenche914 @ May 9 2005, 07:52 AM)

PS ever see what living near the ocean does to a car????

I figure the car I got must have spent a good chunk of its life away from the ocean. Longs are pristine, and, as I said, the fasteners come off without any problems. I've taken a few cars apart, and I've never seen this.
On the white car that was my regular teener until last year, I did'nt dare touch the trailing arm bolts because my experience has been that half to two thirds of those I tried would break. Luckily the alignment in the back was'nt too bad.

Cheers