I'm listing

[westend]

Working under the rear end of the old lady's Mitsubishi Outlander, tonight. The last control arm bolt I removed took 3 hrs. of pain to get out.

List of folks that should not be near me now:
Mitsubishi frame and suspension designers
MNDOT snow plow drivers with salt spreaders
Women who let the car run into the ground before speaking up
HRH The Polish Princess for not listening to good advice to buy a new car

Folks that may get close:
BIL Tom for the donation of his wood stove that is keeping me warm as I work
Coca Cola bottling folks for the nectar of Champs
The guy that invented PB Blaster

That is all.

 

[perchdog]

one thing I have found with using pb blaster...

if you heat nut and apply while still hot the pb blaster soaks in to threads almost instantly. the stuff along with a bit of heat (even propane) works miracles

 

[westend]

one thing I have found with using pb blaster...

if you heat nut and apply while still hot the pb blaster soaks in to threads almost instantly. the stuff along with a bit of heat (even propane) works miracles

Heat is one of my usual tools for rusted bolts like that one.
Unfortunately no one at Mitsubishi figured out that a blind nut captured by a bolt located over the top of a frame cross member that could not be seen, was in any way serviceable. To add misery they put four tubes in that location that serve as evaporative/tank expansion gas plumbing.
I couldn't use heat and I could barely get a socket on the head of the bolt using a 10" extension snaked over the cross member. It was 20 pulls of a 10 degree arc to loosen, 20 back, 22 to loosen, 20 back....three f*&^in' hours.:tears:

 

[perchdog]

god I hate that crap... you know the Mitubishi engneers are probably a lot like the American automotive engineers in the sense that the mighty degree trumps practical knowledge. It is rare to see product engineer that would actually know what end of a wrench to use much less give a rats ass about servicability

 

[jerrymrc]

I feel for anyone that lives where they use salt. The wife's 2001 Grand prix and my 06 do not have a spec of rust on them.

I have been places in the winter that use salt and only drive a rental when I am there.

 

[westend]

I feel for anyone that lives where they use salt. The wife's 2001 Grand prix and my 06 do not have a spec of rust on them.

I have been places in the winter that use salt and only drive a rental when I am there.

Yeah Jerry, it goes with the territory I guess. In MN, at least around the metro area, they're using a different mix than just traditional rock salt or salt/sand. It's blue-green and seems to really melt at low temps so may be a calcium chloride or other different type of blend. The DOT also has spray salting trucks, used mainly on the freeways for preventive deicing so if you drive the Interstates, you're getting it on the underbody, even if not in the snow. When the roads clear and the sun dries them out, the asphalt is a light grey.

The Japanese vehicles I've been under have really no undercoating, some stuff is painted but that gets torn off by road debris fairly quick, in a couple of years. My Ford truck stayed pretty much rust free for over 5 yrs. but now the frame all has a light rust coat in year 10. I'm sure they treat the under carriage to a longevity target and assumed climate and that's about it. I guess a guy could get under there when they're new and spray on an undercoating but when I get a new vehicle, getting underneath and doing modifications or repair, is the last thing on my mind. Undercoating would probably add $5 at the factory. :sigh:

The Outlander is just about complete on the suspension work. Her Highness drove it to work today but I'm going to add the last two control links into the suspension to complete the job. My experience with these multi-link suspensions is that they wear from a weakest link and most of the bushings in this Mitsubishi had failed or were at the failure point. The cause appears to be water intrusion and rust/wear on the iron part of the bushing rather than a failure of the actual rubber parts. Better sealing or bonded urethane would have helped. Grease zerks would have cured it.

 

[jdrum1]

I feel for anyone that lives where they use salt. The wife's 2001 Grand prix and my 06 do not have a spec of rust on them.

I have been places in the winter that use salt and only drive a rental when I am there.

I purchased my previous car while living in the Midwest......NEVER AGAIN!

I made sure to hunt out Texas only cars when I purchased my '00 Honda roadster and '93 4Runner. Both look new underneath (not bad for a 20 y/o suv)!

 

[westend]

Thought I would post the follow up to this thread. I ended up replacing all of the rear control arms on the car, having to cut the last two out entirely. In the process, I nicked a brake hose so that was replaced, too. I seem to have adjusted the toe in pretty good as there doesn't appear to be an alignment issue. This type of multilink setup starts to add more camber into the mix as the springs wear so I may revisit that later. Camber is adjusted by grinding the metal plate stops off the rearmost control arm sub frame mounts and using an offset bolt to adjust. The Mitsubishi offset bolts are $11/pc at the dealer, I had to buy two to replace the lower control link fasteners for the toe-in. Freakin' thieves = Mitsubishi dealers.

I have the same job ahead for me on a BMW, wish me luck.