Shock absorber replacement nightmare

Y'all are really tweaking my memory back to the days when I was a poor college student who used to buy and sell old beater cars for beer money. I'd usually get the cars for free ("Just get that thing out of my backyard!") or nearly for free and resell them for a few hundred $$$ after repairs, and I mean repairs. You couldn't spend money if you expected to make any money, you had to repair what you had. That last post about drilling out the sides of large nuts was a trick I used to use to get rusted nuts and bolts apart that I'd forgotten all about.

Steve