What did you do to your GMT today?

[mikekey]

Ever have one of those days where you get up real early to mess with your car or work on a project, but then 5 hours goes by and you've pretty much done nothing but move about the garage and poke your car, look at it, rearrange some tools and wonder where to start...

I'm having one of those days.

So far, I deflated the tires to 20 psi and rolled her into the garage. Hooked up my Roadie approved LED tail lights.

[ErikSS]

I hear ya Mike. I'm telling myself this "as soon as my head calms down (chronic migraines) I'm gonna get my day started. Really. I"m gonna get off my butt and do something."

[Chango]

Hahah I've been going through the same thing this morning. Been trying to get off the couch and to clean the throttle body/ transfer case fluid....hard to get motivated when its 20 outside

[caseyk08]

Had one of those days yesterday. I was trying to diagnose a front end squeak. It's not the hood rests/hoodlatch.
So I figured it's gotta be the sway bar bushings or end links. They've got 130k miles on 'em.
Disconnected the end links, jammed the sway bar into the up position. Still squeaking.
Spend the rest of the morning walking around the car popping my head into the wheel wells like, "Now what?"
It was raining and generally not a pleasant day. Needless to say, I'm still squeaking! SOB!

[mikekey]

Well looks like my HD tie rods are going to fit so far....

[blazinlow89]

Are the HD tie rods any longer than stock.

As for what I have done to my GMT. We drove to Harrisburg which should have been 3 and a half hours but took almost 5 thanks to the rain. I also arrived with all parts.

[Moots1288]

I would not recommend mevotech arms spent the day cleaning up the bushing, while change my driver side caliper.


And this is the wonderful cv grease

[Trail X]

This was fun... x2...

[mikekey]

What in the world is that?

[dvanbramer88]

broken exhaust manifold bolt?

[Trail X]

Yep... two of them. Biggest pain in the ass in a while. I almost gave up.

[Wahugg]

How'd you end up getting them out? Right angle drill?

[Trail X]

Welder. You can kinda see the progression in the image here. At left is one of the broken heads. That one broke inside the head by 3/16in or so. The other wasn't as bad and had one exposed thread, but its resting on my skidplate right now. In the middle of the picture are two of the weld attempts I made that didn't hold up. Basically, I took some nuts and counter sunk one end, so I could reach in there easier to weld the nut onto the stud. My brother had to hold the nut in place while I tacked it. The one that broke inside the head had to be built up by bumping weld into the hole until I could build up enough steel to weld the nut to. On the right are the two extracted studs, welded to the nuts.

[dvanbramer88]

The one that broke inside the head had to be built up by bumping weld into the hole until I could build up enough steel to weld the nut to. On the right are the two extracted studs, welded to the nuts.

In this situation, you can put a bog flatwasher over the hole, and pump weld into the hole welding the washer to the bolt stud. than weld the big nut to the washer. But anyway, this welding a nut over the broken stud method is supposed to be a decent way to do it. I've heard of it working a lot.

[TBYODA]

broken exhaust manifold bolt?

Oh boy I have read about these breaking, I am not looking for forward to fixing them when they break. Ugg

[Trail X]

The one that broke inside the head had to be built up by bumping weld into the hole until I could build up enough steel to weld the nut to. On the right are the two extracted studs, welded to the nuts.

In this situation, you can put a bog flatwasher over the hole, and pump weld into the hole welding the washer to the bolt stud. than weld the big nut to the washer. But anyway, this welding a nut over the broken stud method is supposed to be a decent way to do it. I've heard of it working a lot.

I was pretty ginger with it, didn't pump the weld in. No washer for me, but I can see how that might make it a little easier. With a small diameter threaded nut, its a bit tricky getting the plug weld to hold... well at least for me it was. I was hugging the front suspension when I did it, looking through a small hole between the body and frame while welding.

[dvanbramer88]

The guy I saw do it, did it on a full size pickup, took the whole inner fender out, and had all the room in the world.

Least you got it out though.

[Trail X]

The one that got it out was my absolute last try. I was going to just put it together without the bolt. My brother actually talked me into trying it one last time.

[dvanbramer88]

Yea, I know how frustrating stuff like that can be. I was changing the belt on my girlfriend-at-the-time's Hyundai. I did it wrong and broke a bolt that holds the tensioner on off in the water pump.

RANT- I HATE import motors that have a serp timing belt that drives the water pump. Especially where the tensioner for the accessory drive belt screws into the water pump with these long skinny sorry excuses for bolts. I broke it with a 1/4 drive ratchet. Also, the timing belt is a scheduled maintenance item on that car. Every 30-40,000 miles it needs replaced or else it snaps, both cams spin free and pistons slam into valves. You know how that goes. It happened to her her this year. God forbid they use an oil lubed chain in such a critical role for the engine. END RANT

it took an entire day to drill out and re-tap the bolt hole in the water pump using a right angle drill. My neighbor has a Snap-on mechanics set that has the right angle drill and a bunch of special bits and easy outs for things like this. He saved my ass. And this was a cold and blustery day in January.

So yea, I know how frustrating a broken bolt can be.

[mikekey]

Funny, one of the reasons I got rid of the Audi is the timing belt on it was a regular maintenance item! I had seen two separate threads on the Audiforums about guys whose timing belts snapped while going down the road, and poof went the motor. WTH?? Germans.