Public Service Announcement: ALWAYS inspect every inch of your used vehicle!!!

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phyregod

!!YTINASNI
I've always been anal about looking over a car when purchasing it, then doing a very thorough inspection once I acquire it to fix any weirdness.. I got lazy.

So, I had a brush with death and I didn't even know it. I pulled the ZC out of my CRX and sold it off. While I was in there, I swapped to some new knuckles and brakes in preparation for my B swap.

The front lower control arm ball joint nuts were of the wrong type, the wrong grade, and weren't even cotter pinned, or even castle nuts for that matter. One had unscrewed itself half way down the threads.

Same story with the tie rod ends. Wrong nut, wrong grade, no cotter pin.. Same with the upper control arms. They were on there with friggin brass nuts.

Now, I have driven this car quite hard on some back road twisties at speeds that I will not report here.. If any one of these nuts failed at even highway speeds, best case scenario you would wad up your car, and spin off the road.. Or of course worse case, spin into oncoming traffic knocking a tanker into a school bus full of nuns and children killing everyone including yourself in a gigantic fireball.

All jokes aside.. If you purchase a used car, look all of these things over.. Make sure the nuts are correct, make sure the cotter pins are in place and in good shape. Check your bushings, just eyeball everything and make sure all is well.

After a full inspection, I ended up ordering $38 worth of nuts and bolts from majestic honda. I have no idea what this guy was doing but aparently he tossed this car together with whatever was in arm's reach.

Be careful folks. Check your stuff!
 
You're gonna love my nuts.

You'd be suprised at some of the junk I have got from shitty auto supermarkets. Some of that stuff comes with locknuts instead of castle and a hole for a pin.
 
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