Thanks for the encouragement.
As a reality check, this was not a basic repair.
I have done enough remove/replace bolt/unbolt to speak with some authority.
This OFA had a few unique roadblocks:
- Having to fabricate/weld/grind your own tool immediately puts this at "intermediate/expert" caliber complexity, ipso facto.
- Not knowing if you're going to strip the bolt and render yourself as owning a permanently leaking car also adds a level of trepidation.
- Buying a T60 L-wrench that several people successfully used, only to see it not seat and having to abort the project adds yet another level of ambiguity.
Most repair jobs do not suffer from "This tool is correct, ohhhh, but not correct enough! Bzzzzz."
- Not knowing if you use a breaker bar from underneath or above adds 1 layer of ambiguity. People have reported doing both.
- Having to manually re-thread an oily part while wearing oily rubber gloves added 15-20 mins. to the project. My back was killing me. Most things re-thread immediately.
- My T60 bolt came loose with relative ease. But, some people have reported breaking the wrench. This adds yet another level of hesitation to the project.
Here, I got VERY lucky, b/c if I had to push hard, I am not sure I would have risked stripping the star hole. I have enough trouble taking apart electrical adapters.
Everything appears very "simple" when it's done, and all questions have been answered.
There is strong hindsight bias in human nature.
Don't believe me? Think back to raising kids. In reality, it was a royal pain in the arse that required some major sacrifices in life.
Now that it's over, I bet your summary is "Eh, it wasn't that bad". "No big deal."
How soon you forget what a stressful nightmare it probably was at times.
Well, the same applies to experts who have totally forgotten what it is like to attempt a mysterious repair job for the first time.
The second time, it takes 20% of the time. 3rd time, you can do it in your sleep.
1 year ago, I had not popped the hood of a car for 20 years. Now, I have $800 worth of tools and have done a 2 dozen small projects.
How? Why? Due of the advent of the internet forums/Youtube, people with no mentors or support systems are attempting this stuff.
People like me are now trying to learn from from behind a 2-dimensional computer screen. Not exactly easy.
Most people never glimpse behind the curtain b/c they b/c they don't do it for a living. And there are few opportunities to learn otherwise. It's been removed from schools.
I'd bet not a single professional mechanic out there had to learn this stuff in TOTAL isolation/vacuum. More likely, they had a job (or a brother, friend, uncle, or neighbor whom they learned from)
Leave the Jeep world for a second, and I'm sure you've noticed that the majority of "wrenching" that kids do today involves costly mods, not even real mechanics. *
(Tuners, ricers......Tint, audio, lowering, rims/tires, LED lights, etc) But, to their credit, at least they know their cars to some degree.
What about the broad population? Oil filter ADAPTER? LOL, most normal people can't identify the oil filter, period.
Now, many adults do not even own a ratchet set. In many regions, only 1% of people know how to open their hoods.
Even fewer know how to change an air filter. (Hell, the XJ requires TOOLS to do it!)
Since the 1990s ubiquity of Jiffy Lube, people don't even change their oil anymore, which was the ONE job every mechanically inclined male would at least learn prior to the 1980s (with ramps)
Today, you can pretty much forget about learning something about cars from that wacky neighbor who is always wrenching in the driveway. Those days are long dead.
Proof? $100/hr careers in the trades for a high school dropouts while many college lemmings are home unemployed well into their late 20s.
Anyways, thanks for the help. Hopefully, that gave you a fresh perspective.
I still feel awesome for having done this, and having a sparking clean OFA.
