mazdaspeedwest

OK check this out, yesterday, Braden drives down to my place so i could install an alarm for him. He gets here, we chill for a few and then head out for some food. We took both cars, as we were going on to the shop for the install and i had a ton of **** i needed in my car, anyway....i'm in front and Braden behind me. We take the VERY first right turn and as i turned i looked in my rearview to see Braden sliding around the corner with his front drivers side wheel flatened and NOT looking right.....and that look on his face (and mine) HOLY ****! i slam it into reverse, hit the hazzards and run over, before i even get there i could tell, BROKEN AXLE!!! what a son-of-a-bitch. bent out the fender, cut the tire but not enough to blow it. So by some odd chance an AAA tow truck is just cruising around and is there within like 5 mins as Braden is on the phone with AAA. DOOOOOOOD! anyway, we tow it back to my place, i scurry around to get my floor jacks and jack stands and some tools. I didn't have access to all my tools, so we had to go to home depot and buy a few...then off to autozone (which happens to be right accross the street ) get a new axle, and ball joint kit.

5.5 or so hours later, we had it back on the road and were eating pizza. We had to re-use the tranny fluid, so we drained it into a milk jug....then to put it back in, we funneled it into a 1qt oil container, then funneled that into the tranny, a qt at a time....luckily i had the long pour skillz... as it's not easy without a long *** funnel.....as we did not have the luxury of losing very much fluid. We also fashioned the Godzilla of pry bars to get the main 32mm nut off at the rotor....it was no match Was a 7ft outdoor tent pole, about 1.5" in diameter.

Poor Braden came all this way and still left without an alarm... but got a new fender bend.... but who knew his ball joint and/or axle would snap! Plus the one that snapped was brand new....although we suspect the it was the ball joint that let go.

So thats how we spent our Sunday....hope yours was better

turboge

I'll try to get some pics of the bad fender........its not entirely bad....but the fender liner has to come out cuz it got severly bent up...

I replaced the passenger axle and tie rod to be safe, and now i'm replacing the upper motor mount with its mazdaspeed counterpart.

And also installing a new battery tie down tray and all...

The car will be receiving its alarm this weekend after a long awaited pause....... I just hope this is the last of the problems.... I do however have an IC leak somewhere in the piping again.....

Certainly another learning experience with suspension...... I can now pull axles and replace almost all suspension pieces in very LITTLE time......lol

Next to replace is the tranny itself... any donations??

mazdaspeedwest

you must be going insane dude i only posted here.