I have to admit I bought your September 2003 issue for one reason, and one reason alone.  Your cover girl, Vanessa Kay left me drooling in the isle of the local grocery store.  I've seen her on a few covers and of course on The Man Show, but WOW!  You could do an entire issue on her,... with some classy iron behind her of course. I do like to read *** though as I find your articles are more driven toward explaining the how's and why's then convincing me to buy the latest products from the advertiser of the month.

As I was thumbing through the September issue I found the article on front-end rebuilds.  A well done piece but I found it giving one particular bit of poor advice that all front-end how-to's include.  That would be singing the praises of the all mighty pickle-fork.  I've rebuilt more than my fair share of front-ends, and I have two bits of advice.

First, if you have an airhammer, throw away your pickle-fork, and get a flat hammerhead bit for your air-hammer.  Remove the lock nut from the tie-rod end and smack the end of the ball-joint stud with a short quick blast of your air-hammer.  Do watch out for the tie-rod end though as this does tend to send it shooting up at a high rate of speed.  I usually throw a shop towel over the greese fitting to keep it from doing any damage.  I've wasted a lot of time with a pickle fork and a stubborn ball-joint stud that was seperated in seconds with a quick shot from an air-hammer.  This also won't tear up your grease boot if you plan to reuse the tie-rod end.  Since the end of the ball-joint stud is stripped of threads anyway, you don't even have to worry about mushrooming the stud if you plan to use the tie-rob end over again.

Second tip, when removing front shocks that have a threaded plunger shaft that pokes up through the frame in the opening of your upper A-arm, find the correct sized half inch drive, deep-well socket, attach a long extension (I keep a 24" one just for this use) and then slip the socket and extension over the nut (you have to open the hood of course) and instead of using an impact wrench, simply rock the extension forward and back about 3-4 times.  The tempered shaft quickly fatigues and snaps and in less time than it takes to hook up an airline to your impact wrench, the shock is out.  (Note; certain Fords and Mopars have inner fender wells that block the top of the shock. On these body styles, take out your half-inch drive wratchet and go through the fender well. With the car jacked up off the ground, the shock will still snap off in about 3-4 cycles).