Ponticrap Fail Quad-monthly Edition

If you've been keeping up, you'll know my Grand Prix's been plagued with a rash of repairs, repairs & more repairs. Now, although I certainly can't discount the manner in which this car is driven as having partial blame to the failures. It is important to note that I also drive around a Honda Civic and beat it like a red-headed stepchild but it seems to hold together and it's 2 years older than Detroit's finest. A few days after the Car-x debacle I was driving my car home when I hit a bump and was greeted by a totally new noise. At first, I thought the sub box was bouncing but removing that didn't make the noise go away. I then tightened the spare tire and that only lasted until I hit the first good bump. I took a deep breath and drove the car into the garage. Once I had the back wheels up in the air, I saw my new nemesis... a broken coil spring. I have no friggin' idea how one breaks a spring but mine was broken.

This, of course, landed conveniently in the middle of my cooties. The thought of having to rip apart a junkyard heap with a fever was just adding to my headache. My Sensei, Jim (I call him that because he's a repair ninja) agreed to help me take the donor car apart. On junkyard day he called and said his neighbor needed a part and they grabbed it for me. Hallelujah! I was so thrilled I rolled over and tried to sleep off more of the fever. Luckily, except for the intimidating large Cadillac stalker guy they met in the junkyard, he said they didn't have much trouble getting the part.

I had a chance to take apart my car again tonight. You'd think that since this strut was off only 3 months ago it would come right apart but that wasn't the case. I marked all my bolts (gotta think about that $60 alignment I just paid for) and, when one of the lower bolts wouldn't budge, I had to get out "the equalizer" aka hand sledge's bigger brother. Unfortunately, I ended up mushrooming the tip of one retaining bolt. That's not a mushroom tip you... wait, off track. Long, long, story short, I didn't injure myself and I had the car back together in about an hour (1.5 hr with cleanup that included a drop light that exploded when I introduced it to the jack). Grand parts total for this week is about $15. I just can't wait to see what breaks next week. *sigh*

That doesn't look right
One of these kids is doing his own thing. Come on, can you tell which one?