I’m a pretty good driveway mechanic. Which means that if it has bolts I can pretty much remove and replace it on the car. It’s never as easy as you think it’s going to be, but in the end you save the labor costs and you end up fixing the car. Unless…

Something goes wrong. Which if you were at the shop they wouldn’t tell you and they would just say. Urrrm, there was another broken part, more money please.  Not, “my bad I slipped and fucked this other thing up” this one’s on me.

So I’m changing out the timing belt in the Subaru because we didn’t know if the last guy had it done.  So I finally got the balls to remove the belt and start to replace all the pulleys and gears that came with the kit.  I replaced the water pump and was bolting everything back on.  When I committed the cardinal sin of driveway mechanics… I started feeling good about myself.  Then the bolt slipped on the tensioner pulley and stripped out the block.  I must have cross threaded it because I wasn’t anywhere near the 35lbs of torque it’s suppose to get.

But on the bright side if I had to break something… this part is a separate bracket that comes off the block. So I just have to go to the dealership tomorrow and get a new one.

Fingers crossed on the price…

Update: $55 bucks for the bracket. Probably could have gotten it cheaper online… but wtf.