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!

Meh. I curbed my CRX.

Pics to follow of rim road rash, blown tire.

Steering is buggered. Still managed to drive it. This pushes things up significantly.

Double meh.

It is an opportunity to improve, so I'll takeit.