Not trying to start a thread here or anything... :-0

As my previous message stated, I was replacing the bus shocks this 
weekend.  A semi-tough job (thanks to all who've posted their shocking 
stories, accessible via the vanagon-gopher), the difficulty of which was 
compounded by THE DREADED PO.

OK, so the old shocks (gas--expensive) are looking pretty bad, the handling 
is a little squirrely, so why not replace 'em?  I buy the exact same 
brand of expensive gas shocks and set to work.  The front two are tough, I 
used buckets of liquid wrench, vise-grips, and all available muscle to get 
the old bushing off.  Reinstall, 1/2-way finished now.  The back ones are 
easy enough to remove, though I notice that one is barely hanging on, 
extremely loose in the bushing.  I think "hmph.  well, I'm replacing 
it anyways, no big deal."  

The deal was this:  the PO must have broken the lower bolt and then tried 
to replace it with whatever could be found.  This replacement bolt was 
bigger than the stock M12 bolt.  So this PO hammered the then-new bushing 
out and replaced it with a bigger one, totally destroying the rubber part in 
the process.  Must have literally hammered the sh$t out of it.  To 
disguise this crime (against a then-brand-new $30-35 shock absorber, mind 
you), the PO put two big washers on each side of the bushing, which 
eventually worked their way loose. 

Sheesh!!

JKH-New Mexico
'70 Kombi (with nice new shocks, yep)

p.s.  I was very surprised to find that Manny, Moe and Jack carry a good 
selection of "M" series bolts/nut