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I've always envied people with acetylene torches who can heat and remove rusted fasteners with ease. Changing out rear sway bar bushings, with somewhat limited access to the top bolt that wouldn't budge with PB Blaster and arm power. Today I tried my Harbor Freight Butane Micro torch. Costs about $13 when on sale and waddayaknow... 2000 1760 degrees (?) of butane heat alternating with PB Blaster and it did the trick. May not be enough heat to conquer ball joint rust issues here in the northeast but It gives a real fine tip of concentrated heat to the flame and I will keep it in mind when working in close quarters near rubber bushings etc.

It is a pain to get those wires through the rubber. Attach a piece of dental floss (I am a retired dentist ) to one broken end of the shortest piece and pull the broken wire back out of the gaiter. Make the splice connection and then reattach and use the floss to pull the spliced wire back through and connect to the other side.

Thanks Ferp, I'll look more closely. Might have moved when I adjusted tension. I absolutely did do the 360 rotation after doing the drivers side belt.

You need a funnel fill kit. You might be able to find one at a auto parts store, I got mine on Amazon. It lets you burp the system and is pretty fool proof

Maybe a connector got wet cleaning? Let it dry and maybe you’ll get lucky I doubt its the air bag computer as well but I guess we don’t know. Used to be able to get both bags and the computer as a set for less than a $100 from yards and eBay, I’ve rebuilt some wrecked ones in the past and there isn’t much to it. Supply is way outstripping demand by this point should be some inexpensive sets. If it’s wiring that’ll be a 4 digit debacle at the dealer and good chance they get it wrong the first time. They wouldn’t even take a 98 seriously around here, they probably haven’t seen one in at least 5 years, some of the techs have probably never worked on one. Haha.

No tool necessary for the crank. I’ve done hundreds without a tool. A socket, long pipe over the handle for clearance and a solid whack with a heavy hammer is a great make shift impact socket. Lock the flex plate or clutch/flywheel. Yes you can probably get away with just a belt change next time. Personally I’d just replace the lower idler every time - it’s $30 and by far the most failure prone and the belt can’t slide over it if it seizes like it can all the other pulleys. I’ve seen seized smooth idlers with the belt sliding over it and the pulley not turning. One was driven well over a thousand miles until parts/costs were doable and it was fine. In retrospect that’s hard to believe! The toothed idler would fail immediately. install the lower passenger side idler after the belt is hung. It’s outside the belt and under light tension, easily installed afterwards. Alignment is easy, no need to make marks or count teeth. The engine doesn’t use paint marks or tooth counts which have no benefit. Too many cooks in the kitchen and learned helplessness IMO. The engine uses data on the cams so I use those too and cover notches/cam seam if applicable. If the car is a hacked up or wrecked POS demolition derby queen with belt covers hanging crooked then maybe belt installation needs some tweaking. Align the cam and crank sprocket. Install belt. Check. Done. Thats it. No need to add steps or complicate.