My car has needed new tires since mid-winter. My initial plan was to wait until November (just before the snow started falling again). Along with new tires, the car desperately needed a four-wheel alignment. One final caveat, before I could get a four-wheel alignment I needed to replace two broken rear coil springs. That was my initial plan and timeframe. This is how it actually played out:
Saturday 8-01-09: A coupon from Firestone arrived in the mail – buy 3 tires get 1 free! The only problem was that it expired 8-15-09. So much for waiting until November… I enlist my buddy Stephen Timko to help me replace the coil springs.
Monday 8-03-09: I called Dave Walters BMW Akron and they wanted $273 per spring! Ouch! Double Ouch considering I needed two! Refusing to participate in this obvious price gouging, I turn to the internet. I bought a set of four coil springs for $244.50 (TireRack.com). While I was at it, I also bought a new front window regulator for $74.06 (FCPGroton.com) because the front left window has started to stick.
Wednesday 8-05-09: First day of work at Stephen’s house, which we jokingly refer to as ‘Timko’s Garage & Grille’ because he will help work on any car in exchange for sausages and beer. I arrived with the requisite groceries, $23.92 (Giant Eagle), and we got to work. Changing out both rear springs was incredibly easy – completed within an hour. Unfortunately, we also now had to change the front springs (which were not broken) because the four-pack I bought lowered the car an inch. The car would look goofy with the rear lowered and the front at stock height. Here is where the story takes a turn for the worse… While trying to loosen a bolt that connects the shock to the wheel hub (bolt #2), I snapped the head off the bolt! In fact, I snapped the bolt head off on each side of the car!!! To loosen the bolts (before snapping the heads off) we had sprayed on penetrating oil, blasted them with an acetylene torch, and hit it with some freeze spray. Apparently this was not enough – because they still broke! Not knowing what else to do, I called Dad. He advised drilling into the broken bolts with a carbide drill bit and using an Easy-Out to back out the bolt shafts.
Thursday 8-06-09: We began the evening by going shopping. First I bought a set of Easy Outs, $8.51 (Harbor Freight), followed by two cobalt drill bits, $8.80 (Lowes), carbide bits were not sold at the three hardware stores we went to. Finally two new pinch bolts, $6.18 (Henry Bierce Hardware), were purchased to replace the bolts I snapped. It was nearly impossible to drill out the broken bolts because of their location and the drill bits simply weren’t hard enough. After much frustration and a few curse words, we were successful in drilling a small hole. I inserted the Easy Out and tried to drill the bolt shaft out. The result…the Easy Out snapped in half! Unbelievable….
Tuesday 8-11-09: Now that the broken half of the Easy Out was firmly stuck in the bolt shaft, my only option was to completely remove the shock/wheel hub assemblies – take them to a machine shop and pay to have the two broken bolts drilled out. On the way to Stephen’s that evening I bought a ball joint separator, $53.20 (Summit Racing), and sausage buns/beer, $11.32 (Giant Eagle). A ball joint separator is the only non-destructive way to separate the ball joint from the wheel hub – unlike a pickle fork which will ruin the ball joint. Trying to disconnect the outer ball joints turned into a hell of a mess. The $50 separator tool I bought broke in half within 20 minutes(!!!) and we resorted to using two pickle forks. Eventually, we were able to detach the ball joints from the wheel hubs, but destroyed the ball joints’ rubber boots in the process. So now I had to buy two new outer ball joints…. The new separator tool is broken…. And one of the bolts that fasten the ABS speed sensor to the wheel hub snapped! So now I have to pay for three bolts to be drilled out….. Delightful. The only positive on the day was that I left Stephen’s with the shock/wheel hub assemblies in the Mustang’s trunk (thank God I had another car to drive).
Wednesday 8-12-09: There’s a machine shop right down the road from work. First thing in the morning I dropped off the shock/wheel hub assemblies to have the three bolts (two pinch bolts and one ABS speed sensor bolt) drilled out. I pick up the newly separated shocks and wheel hubs during my lunch break and shelled out a princely sum of $95.85 (Federated Auto Machine Shop). On the way to Stephen’s after work, I stopped at Summit Racing and exchanged the broken ball joint separator for a new one. We needed this tool in good working order because the broken outer ball joints can only be bought with new control arms (outer ball joints and control arms are not sold separately). Subsequently, we needed to remove the front control arms – which required disconnecting the inner ball joints and control arm bushings. The new ball joint separator worked great this time – we separated the inner ball joints from the control arms without damaging it! An 18mm box wrench was required to disconnect the inner ball joint from the car’s frame. Of course between Stephen and me we had 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22, and 23mm box wrenches. No 18! Then it was off to Auto Zone, $10.66. As I’m getting ready to unbolt the control arm bushings (the last thing holding the control arms to the car) it started to thunder and lightning. Almost immediately the skies opened up with a downpour. At this point even Mother Nature was against me…
Thursday 8-13-09: I purchased two front control arms with outer ball joints, $308.75 (FCPGroton.com) and two washers for the new pinch bolts, $0.53 (Ace Hardware). Also, the following day was the cutoff date for the Firestone tire coupon (buy three, get one free), and I was nowhere near being done with the car! I stopped at Firestone after work and asked if I could just drop off the four individual tires, without the car. ‘No problem,’ they said.
Friday 8-14-09: This was my Friday off and I arranged to borrow a friend’s pickup truck to haul the tires. First thing in the morning I drove out to get the pickup. The gas tank was totally empty….. I put $25 worth of gas in the tank, picked up the tires from Stephen’s house and dropped them off at Firestone. While waiting for the tires, I got on the internet and bought two new axle spindle nuts, $17.50 (PelicanParts.com), which was half the cost of the dealer’s price – even with shipping included! Later in the day I picked up the new tires, $451.66 (Firestone), dropped them back off at Stephen’s, and returned the truck.
Saturday 8-15-09: I took a drive to Dave Walters BMW Akron and bought a new ABS speed sensor bolt (to replace the one I had snapped) and a new front jack pad, $7.88 total. The front jack pad broke off almost a year ago, but I figured I’m spending all this money already and it was only six bucks….
Monday 8-17-09: The new control arms with outer ball joints and axle spindle nuts arrived in the mail. I decided to skip my golf league in hopes of finally finishing the car. First we unbolted the control arm bushings from the frame, which allowed us to finally remove the old control arms (with broken ball joints) from the car. I planned on re-using the existing bushings with the new control arms, but we couldn’t get them off the old control arms. We tried everything – gear puller, sledgehammer, pickle fork, acetylene torch, etc… We ended up using a pneumatic die grinder to cut it off. We were able to save the bushing’s collar, but now I needed two new rubber bushings. DAMNIT.
Tuesday 8-18-09: This is getting ridiculous; my car has been on jack stands in Stephen’s driveway for over half a month. I could have saved about $20-30 by buying the bushings on the internet, but I would have waited another three days for them to arrive in the mail. This line of thought led me to call Dave Walters BMW Akron. They wanted $95 for the bushing (Holy Christ!) but they weren’t in stock!! Special ordering them would take a week. At this point I almost boiled over, but politely said no thanks and hung up. Some Google searching led me to Cain BMW Canton (Canton, OH is about 20 miles south of here). I called and they had one set of bushings left in stock! I hightailed it down to Canton during my lunch break and bought them, $95.32. They were press fit bushings, so then it was back to the machine shop to have the new rubber bushings pressed into the existing collars, $31.95. It never occurred to me to have the shop also press the bushings/collars onto the new control arms. I had figured we would just grease them up and they would slide right on. WRONG! Stephen and I spent most of the night trying to slide the new bushings onto the control arms. We successfully used a sledgehammer and a 2x4 for one side (took about 40 whacks – no lie), but the other one required a more innovative approach. See picture below – workbench vice, two spring compressors, an old brake pad, one breaker bar, a metal clothes hanger, and a half-inch drive socket. That’s what I call an engineering marvel! Worked like a charm…
Wednesday 8-19-09: By the time we got both bushings onto the control arms the previous night, it was too dark to do anything else. I had a good feeling about finally finishing the project on this day. We started by re-installing everything on the passenger side – everything fit! – but did not tighten any of the nuts or bolts. Moving over to the driver’s side, I managed to cross thread the bolt that connects the control arm bushing to the car’s frame. On the verge of panicking (because I can’t very well take the car’s frame to the machine shop to have the hole rethreaded), I found the correct size tap in Stephen’s toolbox. If I laid on the ground and had my arm at just the right angle, I could just barely fit the tap into the cross-threaded hole. One adjustable wrench (to turn the tap a quarter turn at a time) and 30 minutes later… the hole was re-threaded and the bushing bolt was tightened. Unfortunately, rain/thunder/lightning precluded any further work. Damned weather!! I’m so close now!!!
Thursday 8-20-09: This had to be the final day, right? All that was left was to tighten the nuts/bolts on the suspension, remount the brakes, and put on the new tires – easy. I began on the driver’s side and everything went very smoothly. Within half an hour it was totally done! The very first bolt I went to tighten on the passenger side was the pinch bolt. This is the bolt that I initially snapped the head of off and started me down this god forsaken path… The purpose of the bolt is to pinch the wheel hub’s collar snuggly against the shock. I torqued the bolt, but it kept spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning – wouldn’t tighten!!! Even getting the bolt out was a struggle, but once it was out it was plain to see that the threads were RUINED – beyond repair. We figured out that the problem lied in the fact that the collar had expanded too far when it was initially loosened (half a month ago). Therefore, the threads on each side of the collar no longer lined up and as a result the bolt was stripped. By this time it was 6:58pm and the only store in the area that sold the pinch bolt closed at 7. This sucks….
Friday 8-21-09: I switched Fridays to take this one off because I was supposed to leave at 1pm for a camping/canoeing trip to Mohican State Park with a bunch of friends. I made it to the hardware store by 9am and bought a new pinch bolt and a 3” C-clamp, $10.00 (Henry Bierce Hardware). I used the C-clamp to compress the wheel hub collar enough that the two holes were correctly aligned and I was able to successfully thread the pinch bolt. From here it was smooth sailing… I tightened up all the nuts and bolts, re-installed the brakes, and FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY mounted the new tire!!! All that is left is a 4-wheel alignment.
Tuesday 8-25-09: I dropped the car off at Ray Vierheller Automotive for a $63.85 4-wheel alignment. FINISHED!!
After 16 days, much frustration, a few curse words, and even a laugh or two; the BMW is once again in good working order (knocking on wood).
TOTAL COST: $1,545.44
Saturday 8-01-09: A coupon from Firestone arrived in the mail – buy 3 tires get 1 free! The only problem was that it expired 8-15-09. So much for waiting until November… I enlist my buddy Stephen Timko to help me replace the coil springs.
Monday 8-03-09: I called Dave Walters BMW Akron and they wanted $273 per spring! Ouch! Double Ouch considering I needed two! Refusing to participate in this obvious price gouging, I turn to the internet. I bought a set of four coil springs for $244.50 (TireRack.com). While I was at it, I also bought a new front window regulator for $74.06 (FCPGroton.com) because the front left window has started to stick.
Wednesday 8-05-09: First day of work at Stephen’s house, which we jokingly refer to as ‘Timko’s Garage & Grille’ because he will help work on any car in exchange for sausages and beer. I arrived with the requisite groceries, $23.92 (Giant Eagle), and we got to work. Changing out both rear springs was incredibly easy – completed within an hour. Unfortunately, we also now had to change the front springs (which were not broken) because the four-pack I bought lowered the car an inch. The car would look goofy with the rear lowered and the front at stock height. Here is where the story takes a turn for the worse… While trying to loosen a bolt that connects the shock to the wheel hub (bolt #2), I snapped the head off the bolt! In fact, I snapped the bolt head off on each side of the car!!! To loosen the bolts (before snapping the heads off) we had sprayed on penetrating oil, blasted them with an acetylene torch, and hit it with some freeze spray. Apparently this was not enough – because they still broke! Not knowing what else to do, I called Dad. He advised drilling into the broken bolts with a carbide drill bit and using an Easy-Out to back out the bolt shafts.
Thursday 8-06-09: We began the evening by going shopping. First I bought a set of Easy Outs, $8.51 (Harbor Freight), followed by two cobalt drill bits, $8.80 (Lowes), carbide bits were not sold at the three hardware stores we went to. Finally two new pinch bolts, $6.18 (Henry Bierce Hardware), were purchased to replace the bolts I snapped. It was nearly impossible to drill out the broken bolts because of their location and the drill bits simply weren’t hard enough. After much frustration and a few curse words, we were successful in drilling a small hole. I inserted the Easy Out and tried to drill the bolt shaft out. The result…the Easy Out snapped in half! Unbelievable….
Tuesday 8-11-09: Now that the broken half of the Easy Out was firmly stuck in the bolt shaft, my only option was to completely remove the shock/wheel hub assemblies – take them to a machine shop and pay to have the two broken bolts drilled out. On the way to Stephen’s that evening I bought a ball joint separator, $53.20 (Summit Racing), and sausage buns/beer, $11.32 (Giant Eagle). A ball joint separator is the only non-destructive way to separate the ball joint from the wheel hub – unlike a pickle fork which will ruin the ball joint. Trying to disconnect the outer ball joints turned into a hell of a mess. The $50 separator tool I bought broke in half within 20 minutes(!!!) and we resorted to using two pickle forks. Eventually, we were able to detach the ball joints from the wheel hubs, but destroyed the ball joints’ rubber boots in the process. So now I had to buy two new outer ball joints…. The new separator tool is broken…. And one of the bolts that fasten the ABS speed sensor to the wheel hub snapped! So now I have to pay for three bolts to be drilled out….. Delightful. The only positive on the day was that I left Stephen’s with the shock/wheel hub assemblies in the Mustang’s trunk (thank God I had another car to drive).
Wednesday 8-12-09: There’s a machine shop right down the road from work. First thing in the morning I dropped off the shock/wheel hub assemblies to have the three bolts (two pinch bolts and one ABS speed sensor bolt) drilled out. I pick up the newly separated shocks and wheel hubs during my lunch break and shelled out a princely sum of $95.85 (Federated Auto Machine Shop). On the way to Stephen’s after work, I stopped at Summit Racing and exchanged the broken ball joint separator for a new one. We needed this tool in good working order because the broken outer ball joints can only be bought with new control arms (outer ball joints and control arms are not sold separately). Subsequently, we needed to remove the front control arms – which required disconnecting the inner ball joints and control arm bushings. The new ball joint separator worked great this time – we separated the inner ball joints from the control arms without damaging it! An 18mm box wrench was required to disconnect the inner ball joint from the car’s frame. Of course between Stephen and me we had 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22, and 23mm box wrenches. No 18! Then it was off to Auto Zone, $10.66. As I’m getting ready to unbolt the control arm bushings (the last thing holding the control arms to the car) it started to thunder and lightning. Almost immediately the skies opened up with a downpour. At this point even Mother Nature was against me…
Thursday 8-13-09: I purchased two front control arms with outer ball joints, $308.75 (FCPGroton.com) and two washers for the new pinch bolts, $0.53 (Ace Hardware). Also, the following day was the cutoff date for the Firestone tire coupon (buy three, get one free), and I was nowhere near being done with the car! I stopped at Firestone after work and asked if I could just drop off the four individual tires, without the car. ‘No problem,’ they said.
Friday 8-14-09: This was my Friday off and I arranged to borrow a friend’s pickup truck to haul the tires. First thing in the morning I drove out to get the pickup. The gas tank was totally empty….. I put $25 worth of gas in the tank, picked up the tires from Stephen’s house and dropped them off at Firestone. While waiting for the tires, I got on the internet and bought two new axle spindle nuts, $17.50 (PelicanParts.com), which was half the cost of the dealer’s price – even with shipping included! Later in the day I picked up the new tires, $451.66 (Firestone), dropped them back off at Stephen’s, and returned the truck.
Saturday 8-15-09: I took a drive to Dave Walters BMW Akron and bought a new ABS speed sensor bolt (to replace the one I had snapped) and a new front jack pad, $7.88 total. The front jack pad broke off almost a year ago, but I figured I’m spending all this money already and it was only six bucks….
Monday 8-17-09: The new control arms with outer ball joints and axle spindle nuts arrived in the mail. I decided to skip my golf league in hopes of finally finishing the car. First we unbolted the control arm bushings from the frame, which allowed us to finally remove the old control arms (with broken ball joints) from the car. I planned on re-using the existing bushings with the new control arms, but we couldn’t get them off the old control arms. We tried everything – gear puller, sledgehammer, pickle fork, acetylene torch, etc… We ended up using a pneumatic die grinder to cut it off. We were able to save the bushing’s collar, but now I needed two new rubber bushings. DAMNIT.
Tuesday 8-18-09: This is getting ridiculous; my car has been on jack stands in Stephen’s driveway for over half a month. I could have saved about $20-30 by buying the bushings on the internet, but I would have waited another three days for them to arrive in the mail. This line of thought led me to call Dave Walters BMW Akron. They wanted $95 for the bushing (Holy Christ!) but they weren’t in stock!! Special ordering them would take a week. At this point I almost boiled over, but politely said no thanks and hung up. Some Google searching led me to Cain BMW Canton (Canton, OH is about 20 miles south of here). I called and they had one set of bushings left in stock! I hightailed it down to Canton during my lunch break and bought them, $95.32. They were press fit bushings, so then it was back to the machine shop to have the new rubber bushings pressed into the existing collars, $31.95. It never occurred to me to have the shop also press the bushings/collars onto the new control arms. I had figured we would just grease them up and they would slide right on. WRONG! Stephen and I spent most of the night trying to slide the new bushings onto the control arms. We successfully used a sledgehammer and a 2x4 for one side (took about 40 whacks – no lie), but the other one required a more innovative approach. See picture below – workbench vice, two spring compressors, an old brake pad, one breaker bar, a metal clothes hanger, and a half-inch drive socket. That’s what I call an engineering marvel! Worked like a charm…
Wednesday 8-19-09: By the time we got both bushings onto the control arms the previous night, it was too dark to do anything else. I had a good feeling about finally finishing the project on this day. We started by re-installing everything on the passenger side – everything fit! – but did not tighten any of the nuts or bolts. Moving over to the driver’s side, I managed to cross thread the bolt that connects the control arm bushing to the car’s frame. On the verge of panicking (because I can’t very well take the car’s frame to the machine shop to have the hole rethreaded), I found the correct size tap in Stephen’s toolbox. If I laid on the ground and had my arm at just the right angle, I could just barely fit the tap into the cross-threaded hole. One adjustable wrench (to turn the tap a quarter turn at a time) and 30 minutes later… the hole was re-threaded and the bushing bolt was tightened. Unfortunately, rain/thunder/lightning precluded any further work. Damned weather!! I’m so close now!!!Thursday 8-20-09: This had to be the final day, right? All that was left was to tighten the nuts/bolts on the suspension, remount the brakes, and put on the new tires – easy. I began on the driver’s side and everything went very smoothly. Within half an hour it was totally done! The very first bolt I went to tighten on the passenger side was the pinch bolt. This is the bolt that I initially snapped the head of off and started me down this god forsaken path… The purpose of the bolt is to pinch the wheel hub’s collar snuggly against the shock. I torqued the bolt, but it kept spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning – wouldn’t tighten!!! Even getting the bolt out was a struggle, but once it was out it was plain to see that the threads were RUINED – beyond repair. We figured out that the problem lied in the fact that the collar had expanded too far when it was initially loosened (half a month ago). Therefore, the threads on each side of the collar no longer lined up and as a result the bolt was stripped. By this time it was 6:58pm and the only store in the area that sold the pinch bolt closed at 7. This sucks….
Friday 8-21-09: I switched Fridays to take this one off because I was supposed to leave at 1pm for a camping/canoeing trip to Mohican State Park with a bunch of friends. I made it to the hardware store by 9am and bought a new pinch bolt and a 3” C-clamp, $10.00 (Henry Bierce Hardware). I used the C-clamp to compress the wheel hub collar enough that the two holes were correctly aligned and I was able to successfully thread the pinch bolt. From here it was smooth sailing… I tightened up all the nuts and bolts, re-installed the brakes, and FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY mounted the new tire!!! All that is left is a 4-wheel alignment.
Tuesday 8-25-09: I dropped the car off at Ray Vierheller Automotive for a $63.85 4-wheel alignment. FINISHED!!After 16 days, much frustration, a few curse words, and even a laugh or two; the BMW is once again in good working order (knocking on wood).
TOTAL COST: $1,545.44
3 comments:
As Jon pointed out ... you could have bought 15,454 beers at 10 cent night in Fredonia!!!
I had a lot of laughs during this half a month! ha ha. There goes another one.
Oh my God. I took my grill apart and had similar - and simpler issues. I threw it out and bought a new one. :)
We needed new tires on the Civic. Luckily, Kristie's cousin works for John Holtz and was able to order brand new tires at cost for a whopping $33 each.
While putting the tires on, he also changed the oil for no charge.
All of this occurred while I sat at home drinking beer and watching football.
This was way easier than your job...
Post a Comment