Well, so then. I picked up the other Z24 the other day, and gutted the interior to get all the pieces I need to make mine a five speed. Turns out the clutch pedal is riveted to the firewall, so I haven’t removed that yet. I’ll just use drill it out and use some small grade 8 bolts when the time comes, my firewall has all the holes and everything all ready, so it’s all bolt up.
Then I got to the undercarriage. I jacked everything up, and slowly started removing the transmission from the engine. It came to the point of removing the mounts, so I put a floor jack under the engine, and a hydraulic jack under the transmission. Fighting my way through 12 years of rust, I removed the wheel, the caliper, the hub, removed the strut, pulled the CV joint from the spindle, and started taking apart the suspension itself to extract the tranny. The crossmember that holds the control arm takes about 10 bolts to remove, so I slowly undid them, and slowly lowered the crossmember down. Suddenly, a snag. The anti sway bar bushing is catching on the sides of it’s bolt holes in the crossmember. I slide out from under the car, grab a long-ass prybar, brace my hand underneath, and slowly work the bolt away from the hole. Suddenly, it slides right off and drops to the ground. Right on my hand.
My eyes roll back in my head, as my bottom eyelids slide 3/4 of the way up my eyes. The corners of my mouth pull downwards, while my bottom lip puffs up and out front. My nostrils slowly flare as a groan escapes my mouth. Fifty pounds of iron crossmember and aluminum control arm has landed on my left hand, after a quick foot long fall. The skin of my hand has quickly become an odd red, while the insides have the consistency of rancid butter with glass shards and brittle twigs inside.
Okay, so it’s not broken. But it hurts pretty fucking bad. I don’t know why I’m typing with it. I also have about 10 bajillion cuts, scrapes, and blood blisters. Damn me. Why do I enjoy working on my car?
–Tim
