Finally decided enough was enough, and that there was no time like the
present, got all the boxes and packages of stuff together that I've
bought from eBay for pennies on the auto-parts store price, even WITH
separate shipping for most of it figured in, and said "I'm gonna
actually DO it instead of just thinking about it.

What was "it"?

Near total front-end replacement/rebuild on my '82 Mazda 626. Inner and
outer tie rod ends, lower control arms (with bushings) and ball joints,
idler arm and sway-bar bushings, plus brake pads are now all
squeaky-shiney brand-spankin' new. Next step will be a rebuild on the
brake calipers, and fresh bearings and rotors. Parts on hand to do all
phases of that job, just a matter of having the time to actually *DO* it.

I *WANTED* so bad to put in fresh strut cartridges (which I have on
hand) while I was in so deep, and in fact, had the strut and spindle
assembly off of one side when I hit a snag - One of the two bolts
holding the steering knuckle to the bottom of the passenger-side strut
decided to be a pain in the arse about coming out, and required more
than an hour and a half of soaking in Blaster and impact-wrenching and
trying to turn it with a 3 foot breaker bar to get out. (so that I could
get to the nut holding the ball joint to the steering knuckle, which
completely encloses that nut when bolted to the bottom of the strut
assembly) That put me on the "Oh sh.t... I'm never gonna finish in time
to get downtown for an alignment before I have to drive the route!"
track, so I aborted that part of the mission. Shortly after making that
decision (prolly 20 minutes or so) the offending bolt broke loose, and I
was able to complete the part I got done *JUST* barely in time to make
it to the alignment place.

Yay! It pulls to the left just about perfect for a fast lane to slow
lane transition in a little over 2.3 miles on a non-hilly straightaway
section of freeway doing 65. Otherwise, it's about as close to perfect
as *I* know how to make it.

I even managed to get the alignment on-target surprisingly close with
just "eyeballing it" that I was able to get it the 20-ish miles to town
without losing the front tires. Which I had replacements for sitting at
the tire shop, already on rims and waiting to be picked up anyway - the
fronts were a wreck after last night's run, so I had two of my four
"Baldy-maypop, but will likely get me home in a pinch" full-size spares
rotated into the shop for fresh skins from earlier in the morning.

I'm proud of me!

OK, I've gushed :)