Feb 3 - victory is mine !

Sandy headed over to the gym with the M5 and I backed the X5 into the garage again. I hoisted the car up on the jack stands again and removed the left front wheel, thinking at the time that these wheels have been off and on more than my light switches ! I should carry my cordless impact wrench with me, would save a lot of time.

Anyway ... I tried turning the tie rod in the direction that they were yesterday, i.e. out, to no avail, since much of the twisting force is absorbed by the ball joint at the end. Changing tacks, I tightened the one pipe wrench clockwise as much as possible and tied it to the strut with wire then went underneath and twisted counterclockwise, knowing that I could only move that one a tiny bit before running out of ball joint play.

Did it move ? I couldn't tell. I applied more Kroil and rotated the lock nut right back, it now loosened enough that I could spin it with my hand. I also moved the tightening collar back, not wanting anything to impede my progress. I got a magic marker and marked both sides of the threads so that I could tell if it moved.

Trying again, this time able to press the lower pipe wrench with my foot for more leverage, it definitely moved. We're talking 1/16" here but movement is movement. I repositioned the wrenches over and over again, moving it about a 1/4 turn. I applied more Kroil, moved it back and forth a couple of times in that 1/4 turn range. It wasn't easy.

I did not know how much turning was required to get rid of the one degree toe-in / out of center steering wheel, so I called Tire Kingdom and the manager John said to bring it in ... they'd take it from there ... bring it in after an hour because the alignment bay was in use right then.

Ok, that gave me time to get things back together and the car down and ready to roll. I decided to bring along the pipe wrenches and some gloves ... just in case ... who knows.

Henry, they assistant manager (I think) who'd been working the issue the day before along with another tech, reached his arm out as I walked in, having heard from John. In about 10 minutes they rolled the car into the bay and setup the machine, locking the steering wheel into the dead center position as well.

As yesterday, he tried moving the tie rod with the vice grips. No luck. They don't grip as well as a pipe wrench which uses the rotational force to increase the grip. He was going to heat it up again but I told him about my approach. They didn't have any pipe wrenches ... clearly a plumbing, not automobile, tool. Ah ha ... I have two.

So ... he got one out and tried but had no luck. He was still pushing against that ball joint.

I know that this is a long story so I'll cut it short -- the end result was him holding the fixed part of the tie rod with one wrench and me under there rotating the other. Since the direction that we were moving was out, the turning got easier at some point and he took over the turning with me doing the holding and finally we were nicely centered in spec.

Victory is mine ! I thanked him profusely since it would be way outside of their insurance rules for me to be working under the car with him ... in fact outside of the rules for me to even be in the garage !

I drove home grinning, with the steering centered. I'm easy to please :).

-----

Doing some browsing online, I found a video -- professionally done -- covering replacing the upper rear control arm. I thought, what the heck, I might as well look at it and check my rear brakes at the same time. Well, I suppose that replacing a radiator cap is easier, but there's only two bolts, no ball joints to remove etc. Of course that would mean, yes, it's not even worn. Figures. If it's easy to do, it doesn't need doing !!

I checked the brake pads and it looks like they're due. I could probably go for another six months, but I'm doing them now while I'm in the swing of this. Besides, that way if anything goes wrong I have plenty of time to chase down those dominoes.

The pads are cheap -- $48 for 4 pads which does both sides. I picked those up at Advance Auto Parts. While there, I also looked at replacement windshield wipers for the M5 and found that the pair of those are more costly than the brake pads !! Yikes !! I went back home and ordered them online, that costing slightly less than the brake pads ... sigh.

I'm hoping at this point that the rear calipers are ok. Advance doesn't stock rebuilt ones (or new) because I guess there's not as much of a market for those. Typical brake jobs don't change out the calipers ... and I hope that I don't.

That's about it. I have a ham on the grill for lunch meat and we'll have that for dinner tonight too. I'll be in bed early, as usual, and up earlier than usual, needing to leave here around 2am I find that I get more sleep this way than driving over and sleeping in that grotty motel in Gainesville. I've got the bike in the car and my clothes packed !

Onward ?!