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So, I've been thinking about doing a thread about my Talon for a long time, and I figure instead of creating another thread about how I broke something else, I'd to this instead.

History:

I bought the car in April of this year. This was the 5th turbo Talon that the previous owner had daily driven, so it had been well taken care of in his hands.

It had two wheel bearings bad when I bought it, and the other two have gone bad over the last few months.

I initially wasn't taking the best care of it, and the stock turbo blew up. I replaced it with a larger Mitsubishi Small 16G.

Here're a few pics I took at the end of October: Talon Shoot 10/08

Well, fast forward to last Friday. My clutch has been slipping for a while, and I've had the aftermarket replacement in my possession for about a week. The plan was to drive down to northern Iowa, where a friend of mine lived, and replace the clutch there. This guys knows his DSM drivetrain stuff, and when the time comes to rebuild and bulletproof my tranny, he'll be the guy I call.

Anyway, I get down there, and his garage is occupied by an S12 Silvia that he hasn't been able to get running quite yet. We get the Silvia up and running, pull it out to the street, and clean up the garage. Then I pulled the Talon in and we called it a night.

First thing Saturday morning, we get up, and proceed to lounge until 11, then deciding to get to work. I go down to the basement and start pulling out the new clutch and flywheel. I notice the box for the flywheel reads "6-bolt." Now, those of you with knowledge of these cars are facepalming right now. For those who aren't the 6-bolt flywheels are for the first gen cars. I have a second gen.

So, we should have given up right there, but hindsight's 20/20. So we called around until 11:30, finding nobody locally with a spare lightweight flywheel that would fit. We then decided to drive 140 miles back to Minneapolis to swap out the flywheel at the shop that screwed up.

Fast forward to 4:30, we're back at his house and starting to rip my car apart. Progress is slow but good, until 9:30 hit. We're disassembling the passenger side suspension so we can pull the axle out of the transmission, and disaster strikes.

We're removing the bolt that holds the fork on the coilover around the lower control arm, and it twists off. Now, we have spare bolts, so this isn't an issue. We start hammering on the bolt to free it, and only succeed in mushrooming the end. It's seized inside the bushing on the control arm, and there's no way it's coming out.

So we bang on it some more, to ensure it's stuck good, and to mushroom it more just in case it tries to come out, and put the car back together.

I drove it home like that today. It will likely go into a shop of some variety tomorrow, and if not, definitely some time this week.

Now, I know what I did can be considered dangerous and stupid, and I know that technically the car currently isn't roadworthy, but I got home safely, so I don't need to here any responses berating me for my decision. And yes, I will be driving it to the shop.

Anyway, I'll see if I can get a pic of the bolt tomorrow.

Breakin shit FTMFW! So, just snapped the bolt?

I know your pain, there have been quite a few bolts that I have stripped including...

- oil drain plug
- Tranny drain plug
- diff drain plug
- strut tower bolts
- subframe bolts

and the list goes on....

Amen to broken stuff, go the 90's turbo cars and their constant b0rk'd something

Yeah, but that bolt happens to be the major load bearing bolt for that corner of the car.

If that bolt were to come out, well, if you've seen a lower control arm ball joint fail, it's basically the same effect:


It's the bolt going through the control arm here:

The visible end just twisted off. The fork is the bottom of the coilover.

Edit, this is also post 666. APX would be proud.

This post has been edited by cmspaz on Dec 7 2008, 07:16 PM

you should try soaking it with penetrating oil, then hitting it with a propane torch to get it nice and hot and then try turning the other side of the bolt to break up the rust. then you should be able to keep turning it and beating on it till it comes out.

Was going to post that, but thought it was common sense.

Also, a BFH might be needed for the initial "getting it unstuck" part.

PB Blaster is the only shit you'll ever need, lol.

One more here for PB Blaster, much better than Liquid Wrench...

I +10 for PB

that stuff is made for us

Agreed. I have 3 cans in the garage.

From the looks of it, it's seized inside the bushing, so in order to get heat to it, we'd have to cook the bushing off. And at that point, the best option looks like cutting the bolt in between the fork prongs and the LCA and baking the bushing out to remove it, then replacing the bolt and bushing.

Bolt's done, and it's in the shop for the clutch now.

I'll either be getting it back tonight or tomorrow, and then I'll have to deal with 500 miles of no boost.

EDIT: Awesome clutch is awesome. It grabs hard, and with the new clutch line, it engages right off the floor. It's beautiful.

This post has been edited by cmspaz on Dec 17 2008, 08:10 AM

So, in the usual form of stories about the Talon, they come about when things go wrong, hence the thread title...

Well, as stated in this thread, I recently replaced the clutch and flywheel in my car, going with a heavier street disc (2100lbs) and a race weight flywheel (10lbs). Well, the clutch, while not fully broken in, will very often hold the full 13.5 ponds of boost I'm currently running without slipping.

So tonight on the way home from a meet, I've got a friend in in the car who's never ridden in it before, and as per usual, he's got nothing but good things to say about it.

Anyway, I'm doing 70 on the highway, and I decide, f**k it, I'll do a highway pull and show him what she can do. So I ease the pedal to the floor, slowing as the boost climbs above 10 pounds, 11, 12, 13, 13.5, and the clutch holds.

So here I am, right foot f**king planted on the accelerator in 5th gear, and the tach and speedo needles are f**king flying. Between the grip of the clutch and the lack of weight on the flywheel, this car is f**king quick for 172AWHP, in 5th no less, and it's surprising the shit out of me.

Well, I get to about 110, and catch a flash of red out of the corner of my eye on the gauge cluster. f**king oil pressure light started flickering at me.

So I immediately get off the throttle and start thinking, and the conclusion I come to is this: I need a new oil pan. With a sump.

Because, and I checked immediately when I got home, my oil is at the max line on the stick. Meaning that no matter what, I shouldn't be able to force that light on. I've tossed the shit out of this car in autox, and not seen it once, yet under full boost with these new upgrades, the oil level can't stay high enough at the front of the pan to feed the pump.

W. T. F**k.

Well i have a spare leash if you need to barrow it...

Nah, it wasn't solid on and I saw it right when it started flickering, so I let off. Crank play is well within spec, I'm honestly just really surprised that it was pulling enough Gs in 5th to do that...

It could probably be the pick up jumping around. My friend has a 500 wheel GSX and he still has the stock oil pan.

maybe a loose wire on the dummy light? you should invest in a proper oil pressure gauge.

A decision I came to earlier today. It's on the list for the cluster, but it may end up in my hands a little sooner than expected because of this.

So I've currently got 3 things on my 'immediate attention' list:

1) Alternator belt. It slips like a b*tch when the car starts, and randomly while driving. The tensioner is all the way out, so it's really stretched.

2) I need to get my front plate back on. f**king bastards gave me a ticket for it while I was parked. I may just put the bracket on with wood screws and washers through an exposed section of the crash bar for the time being.

3) Boost leak test. I've got a new one, and it's loud. Likely just my throttle body elbow, but it still needs a full test.

wells thats all pretty much minor stuff.

1) $5-$20 from autozone

2) Its just a fix it ticket so that should be around $10

3) ~$20 worth of parts from home depot.

Yeah, I've got to pull the bumper to get the plate bracket mount in if I'm not gonna drill some holes.

I've also got the boost leak tester built, I just need to use it.

The cold kind of keeps them from getting done, though.

Went over to a friend's place yesterday, specifically to his heated garage, and got stuff taken care of.

So I no longer have a screaming alternator belt and am no longer lacking a front plate.

The front plate, however, is only on with zip ties, lol.

but does it still have a boost leak?

Probably, but it doesn't make noise anymore and still holds 13psi across the board and spools fine, so I'm ignoring it for now.

And now we know why dsms have so many problems....