Don't worry about me. I got a coupon.

Take this as another in the endless stream of examples of how you cause yourself far more frustration, upset, difficulty, and work by trying to employ workarounds, rather than cutting to the chase and using the correct damn tool that the job called for in the first place.

As last night wore on, I kept trying to find ways to cope with my lack of a proper means to raise my block.  After trapping a ratchet boxend on a bolt for a motor mount bracket, and teaching a hard stop two bolts short of freeing the oil pan, I called it quits and decided that the next day would begin with me putting an end to this shit and getting ahold of a hoist.

Pictured above is the straw that stuck the camel with a huge medical bill and months of physical therapy.  It's tough to make out, but blue is oil pan, and the brownish rust-colored part that bends over the pan flange is the bottom of the motor mount bracket.

For reasons I can only assume are tied to maintaining the fuckery index value of doing an otherwise simple job, this seemingly superfluous portion of the bracket appears to have the sole function of blocking access to two bolts that couple the pan flange to the block.  All the other bolts, naturally, are a breeze to reach.

So this morning I checked Craigslist, found no ads that were worth the time and money, looked at tool rental outfits nearby and laughed at the $40+/day rental rates they were charging, and then looked at the coupons page for our go-to importer of tools and flashlights.  This netted me a new hoist for less than people were charging for their used ones that were an hour out of town.

Time to max my pump and swell my thick.  By the way: fingers are still dyed.