Thread: Common sense kills me.

Ok today, I'm browsing Facebook and see a post from a real good friend I've known for 20+ years that says "beer drinking and working on the car". I have nothing to do and no beer in the fridge so I ask him of he needs some help. First he's like "no it's just a valve cover gasket but you can come by and hang anyways". Cool, I head over there. By the time I get there, he has snapped every valve cover bolt off except one. He's working at that one when I arrive. He goes to show me how stuck it is... First thing I notice is he is tightening it... I'm like no...man really? He's clueless to why they all snapped. Anyways, of course I took over.. He broke them off about 1/4" into the block of his Saturn anyways thankfully I was able to get out all but one bolt by drilling a tiny hole into each bolt in the block and using a back out bit (idk what it's actually called, reverse thread drill bit with a taper meant for stripped screws). All but one came out easily and that one wound up getting drilled out and nut/bolt in place.

Moral is...idk. Lefty loosely righty tightly

sounds like your friend should stick to his day job

Maybe he's Australian?

they are called Easy Out's. Shit you not.

i like the moral of your story though for sure

Well, their water swirls backwards...why not the bolts?

Well I just got back from his house again. Had to go with him to the parts store to get a gasket since apparently the first time all he planned on using was rtv. No way in hell after doing all that yesterday was I letting that happen so I went over and finished up for him. Also put new plugs in for him after seeing puddles of oil on top of the plugs from the old leaky gasket. Start it up and I see a water leak. Point it out to him and he is like yeah it leaks, so replacing the radiator for him tomorrow. Doing all his stuff for free, but he did help me out by getting me a few side jobs for cash from friends of his.

amazing

Well, I've known this guy since we were in elementary school. He's going through rough times with a divorce and whatnot, moved in with his grandparents etc. I know if he would have taken it to a shop they would have charged him out the ass just to remove the bolts he broke off in the block and put everything back together. I can't stand to see friends dig themselves in debt when i can do the work and have nothing important going on anyways. His radiator is very easily accessible so it shouldn't be more than a 20 minute job for me and will save him $150+ in labor.

The way I see it is what goes around comes around. I'm out of work right now, doing this for him has led him to refer friends to me for work done, this way I can do the work for half what the shops here charge and put a few bucks in my own pocket. If things go well eventually his friends will pass my number to their friends etc and I'll have a nice little side income.

i feel you bro, i help my friends out ALLL the time lol.

"beer drinking and working on the car"....That says it all, priorities