fiat spider

Today I did more suspension work. Work on the passenger side was vastly faster and easier with the experience gained from the driver side. At one point I realized a mistake I had made on the driver side suspension (bad install on the shocks) so I quickly re-did that. My one folly of the day was to completely strip the living s**t out of a bolt that attached the brake caliper bracket to the wheel hub assembly. Dammit. Not real sure how to get that off. I could probably spend all day on it tomorrow and not get it off. It's on there good, so it may be enough to hold. But knowing it's stripped will put fear in my mind that it's a failed part and it will bug me. I'll have to find a way to drill it out or something.

On to the front brakes tomorrow.

So, again, I haven't updated lately. But summer plans have not been as ideal as I'd like. Lots of family visiting. Vacations. More family. Monterey (no Fiat, sniff). House stuff. The Fiat has definatly taken a back seat to the rest of it. Unfortunately for the Fiat.

But we've had a couple cool club meetings. Check out the new club website for pics and news. Brimming with Mambo goodness.

Anyway. Last big action I did was to remove the front suspension in preparation for installing new shocks/springs/pads/rotors etc. And then it sat for months. But this last week I've finally had time to get back on it and get it going. I got stuck on Tuesday. The 22mm nuts that hold the a-arm ball joints to the wheel hub assembly would NOT come off. No matter what I tried. Almost broke my back, arm and hand trying to get it off...with no luck. I sent out a message to the club asking for help. Apparently they are nylon (dammit) locking nuts and require more power than hand tools deliver.

So today I got up early and met Ray down at Louis's house. After eating a burrito and talking about cars and family for a bit, we went out and used the air tools on my problem. Done in 15 minutes with minimal fuss. Man, I gotta get some of those air tools.

Hoping to use the holiday weekend to get all the new parts installed and back on the road. We'll see, I am hopeful. Gotta return parts to Autozone and Eric, both of which let me borrow them a few months back. ;)