so it started as any other normal day.... it was brisk out side. i fire up the fb and pull the choke to let her warm up... 5 minutes later we were on the road and singing to some good 'ol johnny cash. usual morning commute on the highway.. 35mph and a ton of traffic. 8 miles into the journey, not even 1/4 mile from my exit to the freeway and 80 miles an hour velocity, she decides to make a violent lane change left almost into another car. with my quick cat like gamer reflexes i have both hands on the reighns and im pulling her back in... thinking i have blown a tire i try to exit. everything is skiddish as hell and my wheel needs to be turned to the right 1/4 turn to even remotely drive in a straight line. the slightest twitch of the wheel or bump in the road sends me careening with no idea which way she will go. i get off the freeway and pull over free of incodent. tires are fine but i have gained a million degrees of toe out and my left front wheel has a billion degrees of negative camber... tie rod? i think.. i am not too far from my girlfriends work so we limp to her place. twitchy as hell and me afraid to go faster than 10mph, it was quite a ride. with the tire screaming for mercy we arrive. i ditch old bessy and get into the girls car and fly off to work. 3 hrs i return to see what had failed. oddly enough it looks like my toe and camber are back to normal but it cant be that easy. i jack it up and check everything out. turns out one of the bolts that hold the strut to the lower control arm has walked its way out and has left the building. so i steal a bolt out of the pass side goto the hardware store and get a handful of replacements and some loc-tite. all day ive been thinking about if it had held together for another half mile i would be pretty messed up right now and my car would most likely be on its roof in a ditch.. thank jeebus she broke when she did.

the end

 

Man, you got lucky. Glad it worked out in the end.

 

Sounds about like my luck. My DD's suspension is rotting and seeing as how I put about 1000 miles a week on it, I've got to do something soon. I know my brake rotors are seriously warped and I think I'm about to lose the rack. Damn domestic cars! I gotta get my '7 on the road...Glad to hear you're OK man. Makes me want to invest in plenty of loctite and all grade 8+ (or metric equivalent) hardware with lockwashers and nylock nuts for my suspension...

 

yeah. i think i had something to do with it since my buddy and i updated everything with kyb struts and RB springs. we did torque it to specs but used all the old hardware. im now riding on all grade 8 bolts which for metric have a 9.5 or 10 stamped on the head. feel much safer but dips and bumps still turn my face white.

 

glad you and the car are ok!!! did the bolt backing out do any damage? did you snap any pics?

 

Yea, make sure you check the torque on all the bolts until you're comfortable with it. ESPECIALLY the one that backed out-it may have wallowed out the hole, and if that happened it's possible you'll have the same problem again down the road...