I went to change the headlights today in my GN and everything was going along fine until my bit-driver tool, whose magnet has weakened over time, let go of the bit. First off, aren't they called permanent magnets for a reason? I guess in the world of magnets a decade or so is all you need to qualify as permanent.
Anyway that torx bit saw it's chance to escape and rolled down my bumper filler into the abyss that is the GN front bumper. For the first hour or two I tried everything to retrieve that stupid piece of steel. First I used my hands, risking a black widow attack. Then a magnetic retrieval tool. Finally, I resorted to the air and water hose. All to no avail. I squeezed my fingers and hands into all the little crevices, each layer of skin more painful than the last. I craned my neck under the front nose, stuffing my head up into that area, just to catch a glance shiny glint of the tool... and nothing! I kept on thinking that maybe I had been mistaken, that there had to have been the secondary sound of tool on concrete, so I expanded my search area.. under the tire? behind the air hose? maybe it rolled 20 feet to the other side? ...Still nothing.
Yes it would be easier, less time, less stressful just to run to the store and buy another bit; but dammit, I just wasted two hours of my life in 100 degree high humidity mosquito and sand gnat infested Georgia heat looking for it. And I really expect that at least a month was expended off the balance of my life in doing so. So at this point I'm going to start removing parts from this car until I find it...beginning with that stupid bumper.
Now the bad thing about pulling the bumper, the really bad thing is that I can't do it by myself. So I had to enlist the not-too-happy female manual labor in the 100 deg heat to assist. Needless to say, instead of watching black air tonight I'll probably be stuck watching Bridget Jones Diary. And worse yet, with all that contorting earlier, I write this now I feel like I've been through a minor car accident, so the chance of me being able to catch some zs in my chair during the movie are slim.
Finding the bit was just more of a relief than anything else. As I pulled down the bumper it was just laying there in the open, I'm sure it wasn't there the whole time, couldn't have been! It had to have slipped out from some mysterious place or found a wormhole somewhere. Pretty much the whole day was wasted, but at least I have a couple new headlights in there now!
