>and having others show up to confirm or criticize the work helps. I actually had a rather interesting experience last night where an "outsider's perspective"

>and having others show up to confirm or criticize the work helps. I actually had a rather interesting experience last night where an "outsider's perspective" ended up being the exact insight I needed. My roommate stepped outside to socialize with me while I was repairing my Mustang: which has been having intermittent ignition problems since we replaced the ignition control module 6 months ago. --- To set the stage: this module bolts to a plate on the intake manifold. One of the bolts is used as an electrical ground. Unfortunately we had broken this bolt in removing the original module. Furthermore the back of the unit uses the manifold as a sort of heatsink. So that missing bolt was preventing good thermal conductivity as well! We had come up with temporary measures to restore the ground -- but clearly these measures were inadequate. The factory mount is in a very inaccessible spot: there's simply not enough room to drill out the remains of an automotive grade bolt and re-tap the hole. A friend and I had fabricated a "mounting adapter" and were toying with the idea of remote mounting the module. However we couldn't find a suitable spot on the car that would provide a clean electrical ground. (Without stressing the factory wiring harness.) My roommate, a machinist and most certainly not a car guy, points to a flat surface and asks if it's "solid enough" to bolt the adapter plate to. What he had pointed to was the power steering pump. Which for obvious reasons we could not drill into. --- However that suggestion ended up being the catalyst I needed to solve the problem. It was as if the whole engine bay became a puzzle. You see: power steering pumps are made to be removed far more frequently than an intake manifold. Initially I had thought the only way to repair the factory mount was to remove the intake manifold, which is an arduous task that involves removing many delicate assemblies for emissions and fueling. Removing the power steering pump, though, was a considerably easier task! This would open up plenty of room in the engine bay; we could even use a typical cordless drill. --- Inspiration sometimes comes from the oddest places. How to act on the proper solution (repairing the factory mounting plate) had eluded me for six months. An absolutely bonkers suggestion ended up leading me down a much simpler path to success.