Busted Sub, Part Three: How the heck did that happen?

After a pretty retarded faux pas, everything is out! I also found some pretty odd things along the way and learned a bunch of stuff.

Here's the subframe with the steering rack still in it:

I'm not bothering to take it out. It is really hard to move, and the subframe is bent, so I may just pitch them after I get the steering rack rebuilt (really simple) and the new subframe.

I have no idea how this happened to the rear mount bracket:

 I didn't see the missing chunk, so it might have been like that years ago? I really don't know. I'll get another mount bracket or if I can't easily find one, I'll just fix it. It's really simple to do, but will take a while.

I didn't know that the front passenger bolt hole for the subframe is an ellipse!

 I suppose they do that for some wiggle room when assembling?

I had no clue why the steering rack wasn't seperating from the yoke that attaches the rack to the column. I had loosened the bolt, and there was some wiggle, but it just wouldn't drop! The reason is pretty simple. There is this machined groove in the pinion:

 The bolt that pinches the yoke onto the splined portion of the pinion slips into that groove to prevent it from separating. I simply had to take the bolt out. Duh.

This is what the yoke looks like:

Obligatory broken tool:

 I love those pliers. They are pretty long and great for reaching into things and picking things up. I snapped the jaw trying to leverage out a cotter pin from one of the lower ball joints. Oops.

Here's my crusty engine bay. It will be getting cleaned up and some things on the engine address while I am going through all this.

I've got new Prothane polyurethane steering rack bushings on the way. I;m hoping to get a new subframe early this week. I'll be working on it to improve it's stiffness by selectively stitch welding it, as a friend has suggested after he did his. I have some special things planned for the shift linkage, which is pretty darn loose. I'll probably do an oil change, change the spark plugs and install a new valve cover gasket as the current one is old and leaking atrociously. I have an Hf front swaybar that will get installed with new endlinks, too, in place of the stock Si unit. I am curious as to weather or not I will feel that with all the new bits going on the car. I would have started painting some of the parts I sandblasted, but it was too cold and windy. We'll have some warmer days and I'll be painting that stuff. I have some more blasting to do on the knuckles and brake dust shields, but that should be it.

Stayed tuned. I think there should be a lot of updates this week!