At the risk of this blog looking like a Redneck's* front yard...

[*Webb-Allen disclaimer: there is no readily used culturally sensitive term for redneck. Hick is just as derogatory and more strongly implies rural upbringing, Appalachian is inaccurate, hillbilly too restrictive, cracker is frequently used broadly of a whole race, trailer trash takes too long to say, cowboy is more of a political term than cutural, and bumpkin merely implies a disinterest in culture and world events (e.g., a redneck, but not a bumpkin, would still know that NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya isn't from the United States).]

Here's the newest thing this blog's namesake required:



The state vehicle inspector wasn't thrilled with "play in the front end." So I went to a tire shop that also claims some expertise in front ends. Three hours later, they had looked it over, and I still knew more than they did. (Their solution, they explained, would be to replace all twelve parts in the steering linkage. Heh heh, don't think so.) So I took the linkage apart myself, found the problem, and replaced the part pictured above. When I took it back to the inspector, he renewed my faith in the laziness of mankind by asking what the problem had been, and when I told him, filling out the paperwork and giving me the sticker without actually looking at whether the problem was fixed.

So, for the title of "Parts-Meister of the Month," who can identify the front end part shown above?