OK, it's official, I am no longer a 'work on my own car' guy.
I tried the shocks to get me back in the swing of diddling with cars. It appears I genuinely hate it. All I could do to keep myself sane was to chant 'designers are not end users...designers are not end users.'. Only 120years of the technology, and I lay under a truck and solved what must be an age old problem...at the slightest glance.
I hate it, I hate what they have become [yes, I had an early mustang big block, and I cut holes in the fender wells to get the plugs out. Yup, had the bigblock olds...never figured those plugs out, yes, I had the hemi 'cuda with the three piece motor mounts that I never did figure how to get out...IT'S a RANT!], I hate that some shops will tell you they have to pull a ball joint loose to get a shock out instead of just ******** collapsing the shock and pulling it out.
I am now officially an end user. I will attempt a restoration on the jd 140 and the Gilson [that I bought to see if I could stand a restore on a 63 Jag] and then I'm out. If it isn't my 'vette or some other car I can blow an access in to a wheel well, or throw a 9/16th wrench from across the room and hit the bolt that needs turned, I'm just not going to do it. It would have been $85 in labor for the shocks, I'm filthy, I need new Levis, My bad elbow that I generally ignore is being pissy, and I have no sense of accomplishment.
I guess that's why I'm mad. $85 lousy dollars is all I saved, and I couldn't care less that I had the ability to change the shocks or not. I have never seen working on cars as a 'contest' or a stripe on a sleeve.