Thanks, that's my wife's christmas and birthday for the next 6 years! (Olympus E-520) It just had the regular lens on it, but if I wanted to spend an extra 7-800 dollars I could get the macro lenses and really do it...but I think this case was the photographer

but seriously, I worked on that beast for a grueling 8 hours today with no steps forward except pulling the hood off, brakes, those nasty 32mm castle nuts on the drive axles, and the brakes, and the engine mounts and putting it on the hoist. then moved two steps back because it got late and I had to move the car/hoist back into the garage (don't ask) you were sure right about that electric impact mavis! took the driver side castle nut off in one second, the passenger side however, I put the ol' cheater bar back onto my brand new 1/2" breaker bar (broke the other on the same side) and after two tries and 1/4 bottle of bernzomatic later...it's OFF! BUT, I can't seem to manage getting those fricking half shafts out of there! WTF?! HOW?! of course I can't seem to get the damned ball joints seperated either, I got the nuts off and took off the stabilizer connection, but I am unable to pull the control arm away. I beat it, Pry'ed it with my pipe, what's up? so that's where I stand, I wanted so badly to get that engine on the stand today to get it to the shop this week and build it this weekend. but, I am now another weekend behind.

Man, cant even get the ball joints off? That sucks, mine practically fell off. How big of a hammer have you tried?

Pull the control arm out all the way. It's only a few bolts on each corner and they can be removed all together. While you're at it $50 from Summit and you can get some Poly bushings for those front control arms. Easy to install too, just hammer out the one and slide the other one off. Then mash the new ones in and on.

Since you've beat the hell out of the ball joints you'll probably need to order new ones anyway which is a good idea if they are stock. Since you didn't mention it (or I missed it) I'll mention that the Ball joints are held in place by a C clip. You'll have a hard time removing them without removing it first. If it is out you need to hit them harder and get the control arms out of the car so you can hold it in place in a vice or something.

And the axles come right out, not sure why you're having a hard time. Are you following the FSM steps for removal of these parts? I always printed the pages I needed from the Vfaq and went step by step until I had them memorized.

Oh and as always Google is your friend.

I googled "Dsm ball joint removal" and this was 7 down from the top.

http://www.columbusdsm.com/forum/showthread.php?p=67298

LOL, I know, I shouldn't be having this problem since I replaced those ball joints not more than 8 months before the car went down! All I had to do was damage (not on purpose) the old ones and picked the new ones up at auto zone in Warsaw. then I put a steel pipe under them and slowly brought the car down (it was on a lift at the time) and that took care of it! That is why I can't believe I am having such a time with them! I think after work on wednesday I will venture another trip to the garage and try it again. I used to work in a factory that makes ford's control arms, it sucked like hell, but I understood how it was put together and pressed, also ran CnC on it (just to clean the hole stamping up to ensure correct fitment of ball joint) then I worked at citation in Albion which made aluminum casted control arms. all this control arm work and I still have this much fun with mine
I was reading VFAQ about it and he mentioned a "pickle fork" and I'm like wtf is a pickle fork? I mean I even tried to put a jack under the wheel to make the load a bit more level to help pull it out (the threads are at an angle with the strut decompressed) and to no avail. the guy in the haynes manual made it look easy of course! all in all, I should have them out on wednesday. I did notice when I was pulling on the shafts that some tranny fluid leaked out, It looked Perfect! I hope that means that the tranny is in good health for sitting this long.

Pickle Fork

You should see how mine looks and still didn't budge those things. Ended up cutting them out, then banging on the control arm while it was in the vice. Did the bushings, ball joints, and tie rods all at the same time.

yeah, I'm deffinately in the position to replace...well, near anything! BUT, I have to stay inside of my budget and timeframe. the deal is, that I have to have this complete by mid november at the latest. I want to make sure that I have all bugs worked out by christmas when I'll be driving it to florida. I'm going to have to pick up a pickle fork now, it looks awefully useful! I'm also haveing one hell of a time trying to decide on a head gasket. I'm half tempted to have the head o-ringed like my last one and just run the stocker again. I also think that I am decided to just throw my stocker cams back in, I don't have the time to dial in "272's", and am kind of unsure about those FFWD sticks that are $297 for Both...I will make up that difference on either a kevlar timing belt or a lightweight flywheel (not that it Needs replaced).

Honestly the car won't be any better off with a Kevlar belt or a LW flywheel. I have had a LW flywheel and I couldn't really tell a difference and it was the Uber light Fidanza. The car may have lost a couple less Hp to the wheels but really it's not going to make it a world beater for what they cost, not to mention if you want to do it right you have to spend $40 or so on new hardware since the mounting surface is thinner and stock bolts are to long. And unless you make 1000hp the Kevlar Tbelt is just for looks. Don't even worry about Oringing the head either, not needed at all. Since the surface RA is unknown on the head you got I'd just use an OEM Mitsu Composite gasket and ARP head studs. This is all I'm doing and it will hold all you can throw at it. As for the Timing belt, OEM Mitsu is good and proven but they are still pretty spendy. $69 @ Extreme PSI where as a Gates Belt is $45 @ Parts Dinosaur. Since this motor will likely never make more than 350hp I am considering just doing the Gates belt myself. I am usually an OEM snob but this time around I've bought lots of non OEM parts just to see if all the hype about them being shit is really true. And because most of the time it's at least 25% cheaper or more.

I bought my last belt from Parts Dinosaur. It wasn't a Gates, I received a Contitech. Contitech = OEM supplier for Mitsu.

Yea I think it says on his site he substitutes for equivalent parts sometimes depending on availability. I think ContiTech is also a German OEM parts maker to - BMW or VW or something. Good stuff.

I plan on placing another order through PD in the next month or so - likely gonna get the pulleys and tensioner from him too.

I believe he is selling Italian made timing belts right now. Need to get another timing belt done.

Well, I did it! Those damned half-shafts are out! I got tired of tinkering around trying to get the passenger side out of the tranny with a pry bar, so I am just going to lift the engine/tranny out with it still attatched, I pulled it out of the hub. Now all that must be done is to get the supports off (again) and pull the unit. I will put the tranny on some wood and put the block on the engine stand.

Rick and I did the same thing!! LOL! I have had a hell of a time getting shafts out too. We pulled a shaft out with the motor last time we yanked Ricks current engine. What a huge pain in the ass.

Yea the shafts can be a bitch. I made sure to pull them when I had the motor out the first time.

Never had an issue with mine.