Hope is the last thing a person does before they are defeated.

A couple of days ago, in between grilling steaks for dinner and eating them; I figured out how to remove the broken bearing and complete the build of the passenger's side spindle.

Tonight, I pulled the Airkewld brakes off of the car and began the process of installing the CSP brake kit.  The driver's side went on fine.  The passenger's side, well, didn't go as smoothly.  I'd damaged the outer tie rod end in my haste to remove the spindle and it was going to need some guidance on removal.  I bought what I thought was a nifty little tool made to remove stubborn tie rod ends.  The thing they fail to tell you on the package is that it will also try to eat the steering arm while evicting the tie rod end.  It finally popped out and I put it to the side - figuring that I'd deal with that issue later.

Now it's installation time for the CSP spindle.  Bottom ball joint is installed and I'm starting the thread on the top one when I notice that something isn't right.

Fuck.

The threads on the ball joint (which is brand new and has never seen street use) have shredded off.  The nut wasn't tight - so it wasn't yet a matter of over-tightening it.  I confirmed that I didn't cross thread the nut and concede defeat.  I don't have another one.  It's a Meyle brand part - I'd heard about quality issues on some of their other parts but figured that I'd somehow evaded the decline in quality since I hadn't experienced any issues.  Turns out, I'm just another statistic.  I don't think I'm going to get another one.  If the threads came off that easily - how strong are they on the other 3 ?  Looks like I might wind up eating the cost on these and replace them with something else.  The sunk costs on this car are getting a little out of control.

Off comes the spindle because I can't leave it hanging there by the lower ball joint.  The car is now back to sitting on jack stands again with one installed spindle.  This is getting really, really old.  In lieu of throwing tools around, I just picked up the stuff on the floor and shut off the light.

I'm either losing patience or desire.