It never ends

As with most projects that I start I always end up finding another. This time was no exception. While I had the wheels off my car I decided to take a look at the flexible brake lines and was horrified to find that the two lines that went to my front calipers had huge gashes in them.

I figured that since I was on such a performance kick and the front OEM rubber lines were $50 a pop from the dealer that I would upgrade to stainless steel braided lines.

Replacing the front lines was easy, it took a little PB nut blaster but they came off with out any major trouble. This sadly was not the case with the rear lines.

I ended up having to fabricate 3 of 4 hard lines for the rear of the car after trying for 3 days to get the flexible lines off with no avail. This required a bubble flare tool which was harder to get than I expected, but a small auto shop near me came through and got it with minimal fuss.

These are the lines I needed to remake.

Lower transmission mount

As I said before I was having some clunks during shifting. The other mount that is prone to go is the lower transmission mount. While mine wasn't completely gone I figured that as with the rest of the work I was doing it is better to get it out of the way now. Again the job was easy as pie.

Front motor mount

The last few weeks out in Michigan began to reveal a loud thud upon shifting. Since I had the car up on jack stands and the wheels off I decided I should look at the front motor mount. Well upon inspection it was obvious that the current mount had failed.

The sketchy part of this operation is lifting the engine by the oil pan. This is accomplished by using the edge of the pan.

Here is the old mount notice the oil splatter all over the place, another time though.










Here we see the old and new engine mounts pretty obvious which is which right?










Ta da all installed and cleaned

A few updates

Alright I've got a few updates from good ol' Michigan. First, I finally bought the IPD sway bar kit. I plan on installing this over the course of my winter break. Everything that I've read says it should only take a few hours, but since my track record isn't that good I'll say I need a day or two.

Second, I'm due yet again for an oil change as The Chiseled Brick has hit 208,000 miles. I doubt I'll get to it this weekend though.

Finally, my car is completely covered in salt. If only a brilliant chemist could figure out a way to make salt a anti-rusting compound while retaining the deicing abilities.

Tie rods part 2

I replaced the busted tie rod without issue. I used a little bit of PB Blaster to loosen the nuts as well as the tie rod it self. I ended up having to buy some new wrenches which was a lot more expensive than I thought it would be.

The old tie rod 's dust seal was just about 50% gone. I'll take the car in for an alignment as soon as I can find a place that's open, which seeing as it is labor day weekend is not going to be fun if even possible.