So, this weekend I thought I would make a nice little project out of putting some new springs (a new release from former Prodrive engineer Dan Antonielli's startup, Epic Engineering) on my car (a 2010 Impreza WRX). My goal with the car is to make something that, as I see it, could (and should) be had from the factory, and that means keeping every new part below the "XTREME" line. So, that in mind, today's adventure is ironically not brought to you by the letter "subtlety."

As it was.

To the left you'll find a photograph of my car before I got my stupid ham-fists on it. It is calm, it is serene, it is unadulterated. It's sitting in my mother's garage in this photo, and the trunk is popped because it needed to be de-carpeted to allow me access to the bolts keeping the shocks from just falling out.

Now, I'd like to point out that I've never really done something quite so mechanical as disassemble suspension components before. I have replaced hoses, spark plugs, ignition coils, and other such lean-over-and-un-screw-some-things parts before, but this was breaking new ground for me. That said, I knew I was probably going to be in a rather foul mood and spouting all sorts of appropriately foul words in no time, so I wanted to put myself in a place where people generally aren't (hence mom's garage), put on some R.E.M., get mad and dirty, and make a day of it.

Well, I forgot the R.E.M., so I moved straight on to mad and dirty. In retrospect, I don't know why I didn't just throw on one of the many other CDs I cart around with me, but I guess I was rather stubbornly set on R.E.M. That's probably a good point to take away from this: I'm awfully stubborn sometimes.

Anyway, things were going along reasonably well. Yes, I had to compress and decompress that first spring about a billion times, and then another billion after that getting the new one on because I would always wind up having the long end of one of the compressors in the way of something necessary, or needing to move out of some small gap that I needed to get the vice grips through, or... well, really just those two things, but I found myself in one of the two situations so constantly that by the end I was turning into a crazy person. Also, due to the rear suspension being a rather compact multilink setup, I found myself using every available limb on my body to pry things down and wrench at things in order to get the shock assembly in and out. At one point I was actually on my back, using my right leg to press down on a pry bar, my left leg for leverage for said prying, and my arms to jam the assembly back into place before the bar slipped and everything closed back up.

But, one run to the store for a deeper socket and some PB Blaster and a whole lotta swearin' later, the driver's-side rear was done and back in. And I was thrilled.

Subtlety was not here.

The second rear was loads easier getting out, and things seemed to be going quite swimmingly until my grandpa wandered over to try to convince me to wrap things up because it was getting late (it was not getting that late, but I do not fault him; he just did not want me to meet an early end at the hands of falling-car-syndrome). Anyway, at this point I was about to separate the top hat from the shock itself, so I had the assembly across my lap and my ratchet on the lock nut. Now, I don't know if I had bumped the ratchet from "loosen" to "tighten," or if I merely thought I was loosening and just paying no attention whatsoever, but, whatever the reason, I was unable to turn that nut at all. So what did I do? I didn't stop talking for a second to think about what I was doing, I didn't check to see if I was even trying to turn the right way (something which I'm typically a nazi about with other people); no, instead I reached for a big-ass length of copper pipe, slipped it over the end to give me a ton more twisting power, and just cranked away. And wouldn't you know it, it actually began to turn, and it continued to do so until the pressure of the now way-too-tight lock nut split the top hat seat clear down the side.

It was at that point that I realized that I was a dumbass.

Rather than learn from that and take the hint that I had fried my brain with heat and cusses, I decided to solidify my position as a dumbass and "fix" this broken perch with what else but a zip-tie. I figured my apartment was close by and the roads en route were smooth, so I'd just limp it back and leave it in the garage until I could get my hands on a new shock (I do not believe that little perch can be had individually). So, I reassembled everything, got it all back in place, and took the car down off its stands. This is what it looked like:

Imperceptibly lower.

If you're looking from this picture to the one up top (which you probably aren't) and are unable to tell the difference, well, neither can I. It'll settle down in a week or so, though, and then it'll be nice and ever-so-slightly less SUV-like.

At this point I was pretty mad at myself, so I took my grandpa's advice and headed indoors for the night.

THE NEXT DAY.

I was up early to finish things off. I knew the fronts were supposed to be easier, and my head was no longer so full of thunder and lightning, so I was in pretty high spirits. Got out there, took things apart, put things back together, and all was fine and dandy, until...

Hang onto that "until" for a second while I provide just a bit of backstory. See, I had a largish brass pipe that I was using as a cheater bar with my smaller ratchets (the very same pipe which so readily facilitated my first failure). It slid on and off those smaller ratchets without drama, as should be the case with a cheater bar. However, the deep sockets I needed for this required my larger ratchet, which was just a little too broad to fit in the pipe. Turns out my hammer thought differently, and a few solid swings later I had effectively fused the two together for all of eternity. What does this mean? It means that whenever I had to use a socket that required the permanently-lengthened big ratchet, I had at my disposal way more twist than should ever be applied to the shitty bubblegum metal bits that Subaru uses to build their cars' most critical components.

You can probably see where this is headed (quite literally, in fact; there are pictures).

Things were going really well with the front end. Like, so well I was singin' and (ever so slightly) skipping around. The end was in sight! I would soon be free of my comical wheel-well gap! So great was my enthusiasm that it bade me forsake discipline and leave my torque wrench on the sidelines, relying instead on my "skills" to tell me when the very last bolt was properly tightened.

Nor was it here.

As it turns out, "properly tightened" when translated by a three-foot breaker bar becomes "stripped." And not only was this a stripped bolt, but it's a stripped camber bolt which cannot be found on the shelves of your friendly neighborhood hardware store (at least not my friendly neighborhood hardware store).

So, the last thing between me and slapping the wheels back on and driving (gingerly) away is presently chilling in the parts bin of a closed-on-Sundays Subaru dealership. I guess that's probably for the best since it rather forces me to buy a replacement shock instead of relying on the makeshift zip-tie cast holding the rear in place.

And that is the story of how enthusiasm ruined everything forever.