East Coast Car Work

After I got back from Texas, Shannon and I decided to tackle some work on her car that had been neglected for a while. The ABS (anti-lock brake) sensor on her right front wheel was broken and needed to be replaced and her front rotors were warped and need to be replaced. Unfortunately, Shannon's car spent most of its life on the east coast, so it turned out to be the job from hell.

Replacing the rotors went smoothly, but the bolt that attaches the ABS sensor to the steering knuckle broke off. I drilled part of the bolt out and tried to use Easy Out bolt removers twice, but both times the Easy Out broke off inside the bolt. Easy Outs are extremely hard steel, so you can't drill them out with normal drill bits (I probably dulled several of mine trying). You have to use a Dremel with diamond coated bits to remove the hardened steel. I burned through about eight of those throughout the process. At 8 bucks a piece from Home Depot, that would've gotten expensive. Luckily, Harbor Freight sells 16 packs for 7 bucks.

In the end, I decided to drill all the way through the stuck bolt and tap new threads (inside of the old bolt) for a new, smaller bolt. (I didn't make any more attempts to remove the stuck bolt. I'm pretty sure it was fused to the steering knuckle) It took three days of work, mostly drilling and dremeling the stuck bolt and Easy Outs out, and two trips to Denver (an hour away from Silver Plume), but Shannon's ABS seems to be working fine and her car no longer vibrates madly when she brakes. And I learned some hard lessons about east coast cars and rusty bolts.