It was my first time and.....

So I worked on a car for the very first time. I have not done much to cars other than plugs, wires, and pad swaps trackside.

I bought the 91crx si. It came with 2 upper control arms to be changed. I cleaned out the garage, rolled in the car, loaded the fridge, tuned in the Xm to channel 48 and off I went.

I jacked up the car, put the right side on a stand. This side was giving me some knocking so I decided to start with this one. One of the lugs is broken on that side so I was going to pull the hub as well.

Well, off with the tire. I started to mess around with the caliper since, other than pad swaps, I never really worked with one. I took it apart, lubed it, and hung it while I messed around with the rest of the stuff.

I took the upper arm out. I the knocking was coming from the ball joint in that arm. I could move the stud around in the joint with my hand. I put the new arm back in. I started to put the castle nut on the stud by hand. I wasn't able to push the shoulder of the stud into the knuckle that well so I used the torque wrench to help out. I set the wrench to 32lbs. After a couple of turns, the rubber collapsed, the shoulder dropped right into place. So I kept turning till I reached 32………..I seemed like I should have hit 32 by now…….couple more turns……oh crap. Something is stripped.

I could now turn the nut by hand. It would not come off or tighten. So, after a couple minutes of panic, I decided to take my Dremmel to the nut to cut it off. I cut a groove in the nut, tapped the groove with a flathead to press some of it to try and grab a thread. It came right off….but it was not the nut that was stripped. Damn it.

I started to check out the torque wrench….the thing was broken and on lock down! I could have lifted the car with the wrench and I would not have heard 'click'.

So I few minutes on the phone, I located another arm. Hopped into the other car and off I went to the store. I explained to the guy that this was the second arm today for the car….he had pitty for me and gave me a discount. I bought a new wrench also.

Back home….getting the weird eye from my wife since ' I knew what I was doing'…….

The new arm went in ten minutes. Put it all back together with no problems….even remembered the cotter pin.

I was putting the caliper back on. The car has an Integra knuckle. I was having a hard time getting the dust shield out of the way of the caliper. I also had to compress the caliper a bit with a clamp.

Bolt it up, throw in the tire, and back out of the garage…..

NO BRAKES! Lol…..pedal went right to the floor! Rolling down the driveway….pumped a few times, good to go.

The arm works fine after a few hot laps around the block. But I have a noise…..

When I cut hard to the left, right front (where I worked) has a noise like the dust shield is rubbing on something. I have not taken a look at it yet but the shield rubbing the rotor? I did have a hard time getting the shield and the caliper to play nice together.

This weekend…..the other side arm….

Lots of fun working on this car…..more fun driving it. It is like sneaky fun. My E46M3 is like bully fun.