The Y shaped tool, do you mean something like this?
LivTee Plastic Fastener Remover Clip Removal Tool, Door Panel (Upholstery) Remover Tool for Automotive Audio Equipment, Door Panels, Trim Panels, Window Trim, Emblems, Plastic and Metal Clips
Yeah for the wheel bearings and the rest of the suspension, I watched this video, the video is what showed me rhat its really not as difficult as I Thought it was.


He also has a video showing how to take it all off, and a ton of other helpful car maintenance videos.

As for replacing the ignition coils, its just what the shop recommended. I had a tune up done to rhe engine since it had reached 100k miles, and thats just what they did.

for the wiper arms, one of them was bad, and rhe wiper motor transmission had something wrong with it,, it kept turning the wipers on by themselves,, and they wouldn't work correctly.

And for the ignition switch tumbler, I had such a hard time getting the key to turn,, sometimes it would take me 3 or 4 mjnures just to try and start the car, so I had a locksmith come out and rebuild it, and he said the tumblers needed replacing. It cost me $200, but I've never had an issue since he rebuilt it.

 

Nice, keep at it amigo, your Monte better be loving you. $200 for ignition switch rebuild, very fair price. Just had my GMC's done (replaced), almost $700 at the dealership.

 

I believe that tool you posted should do the trick to help release some of the clips. If you have any junk yards where you can pull stuff yourself, I would suggest do some homework on what it should take to remove those ground fx, then experiment at a junk yard. Learn all the ins and outs to it.

Your ignition cylinder issue is a new one, but makes sense why it needed done.

As for the coils, you followed advice from a shop, but my personal opinion, if you didn't have a problem, I would have left the coils be. I have had a ton of cars with these coils and rarely go bad. And the few times I needed an aftermarket coil, I found those tend to fail after a while. Now, there are other cars (usually coil on plug design) where you definitely should change the coils when doing plugs.

 

@Zippy02 Thanks! I will for sure, i'll post some pics some day when i get it looking nice.

@The_Maniac Yeah I will see what we have around here, we should have something around here. I was thinking about that as well. I was thinking if finding a junked Monte and just ripping one of the ground fx off and seeing how its held on, then that way i can get a good idea how to remove the other side. As for the coils, yeah i probably should have, they told me it sounded like there was misfiring in there, but idk if they were just BSing me. its hard to say with those places. I dont doubt all the work they said needed to be done, actually needed to be done, but I think the kind of took advantage of me in some aspects as well, which is why I want to learn to do stuff myself, so i can save money and know it gets done right. It proibably has a lot wrong with it because the person that owned it before us, my dads ex wifes sister, never really drove it, and just left it sitting around. When my dad bought it, it had 4 flat tires and only 30k miles on it in 2012. Her sister died and so did her husband shortly after so my dad bought it and he gave it to me. So sitting around not being driven im sure created a whole lot of issues but probably saved it in some ways as well.

I bought a drill bit sanding wheel and wanted to try scraping some of the rust off of the body just to see if it was bad, and it looks like only surface rust, at least in the spot i tried, so thats good! it came off easy. I bought a rattle can of paint to paint over the metal to protect it for now until i can deal with it properly later. My main goal is to just get the rust off so it doesnt get worse. My drill died before i could get the inside lip of the fender there, but it works good. I forgot to get primer paint and got just regular paint soo i will buy it before i leave work tomorrow.

That hole in the metal I believe is where my dad drilled into it to pop dents in the fender out, then he bondo'd it up. I think you can actually see some of the bondo there. I scraped past the paint to see if there was any rust hiding under the paint around the affected area, and there wasn't much, so thats good!

It looks like i'll need to get some bondo and smooth that area out though.

 

If you plan to use POR15, do NOT clean the rust, paint and then POR15 on top of that paint (otherwise I would remove that paint, as the area you painted has a proven rust issue and you want POR15 to bond to it).

Is that the rear quarter or front fender? It almost looks like the rear quarter. As I understand (and I might be wrong), the rear quarter has a couple pieces of steel welded together. So you might get the rust on the outer surfaces, but you still have issues in between the layers.

Without being the person working on the mis-fire issue, hard to say if it was coils or they just threw parts at the problem. But it's over.

Your attitude of wanting to learn is the best thing! This way you can do the jobs OR have better knowledge to understand what a shop is doing. 100% encourage that education! Quick example from my past, before I knew anything about wrenching, I have an 84 Camaro I took for tires and an alignment. The shop took me to the car to show me the issues why it could not be aligned. All the tie rods were shot. They gave me an estimate of $1500 to handle it (I gasp, that's what I paid for the car). I took the estimate home and talked with my dad. He spotted what they were doing. They were billing time and material for each individual part they had to change (not how they would actually do the job). On that car, you release a couple points and all the tie rods with connecting sleeves drop out. You re-assemble the new parts and slam those in the car and everything you dropped you dispose of and then you get the car aligned. They were billing time and materials as if they had to change the outer tie rod, then change the connecting sleeve, then change the inner tie rod and so on (which is NOT a practical way to do the work).
Dad helped me do this. It was $150 parts, 1-2 hours of labor and then a $75 alignment and the car was good again! So, great reason to continue your education.

 

Well with the paint i bought, its only just meant to be a band aid to prevent the snow and salt from rusting it any further until summer when i plan to work on it. My plan is to grind all the rust off, paint it, and then wait until summer, then sand the paint off those areas and basecoat it, paint it and prime it. I looked at the spot at the gas station and it looks like its already started to rust. which i couldnt believe. but maybe it was just some of the rust dust getting wet and streaking onto the metal, im not sure, but either way, i'll paint it tomorrow for now. I could put some POR 15 over those spots in the summer before i actually paint it, that might be a good idea to do so.

Yeah that is the rear driver side panel, the passengers side is like that too, and i think the other 2 wheel wells are as well, but i will have to check.

Yeah thats why I want to learn this stuff, I could have probably saved thousands and thousands of dollars doing things myself, plus I just find it interesting how they work so that helps a lot as well. I really wanted to get a broken monte engine and transmission and just take them apart to see how its done and see if i could fix it without having to worry about taking mine apart and ruining it. But I only live in a 400 sqft apartment and Im not sure how I would get a 500+ lb engine in here haha. I live on the ground floor but theres like 5 or 6 steps going down into my apartment because the ground floor units are sunken into the ground a little, and it would be a pain in the *** getting that engine down the steps. A 4t65e transmission might be better since its only a couple hundred lbs and i can have a friend help me with it, and its smaller.

For the spots, it looks like im going to have to bondo them to make them smooth, but im not sure which type of bondo to get.

Also, what would i use to get that metal smooth as i can? I dont think sand paper will do it for steel.

Heres three that i saw at the store, not sure which one will work best:

 

Honestly, this is my opinion, if you don't plan on doing it proper start to finish right now, I would NOT do any of the body work. Hold off. The reason.... The metal on these cars is thin. Only so much you can do to it and only so many times. You clean up the rust now, prime, paint with the idea to sand that prime/paint later. I believe you face two issues. 1. odds are, without proper steps to inhibit the rust, it will re-rust over the winter (and expand to more surface area). 2. each time you sand it, wire wheel it, work on it, you are thinning the metal more and more.

As I mentioned, the POR15 needs to be applied to bare metal to be most effective (because properly prepared, it will bond itself to pores in the metal). Creates a shell. Some advise, if you use POR15 on areas that are seen (like your quarter panels), I would suggest spraying it. You can brush it on, but my experience, you will never sand it to properly put finish paint on. Also, don't do what a friend of mine did years ago. He Bondo-ed the areas that needed it and THEN applied POR15. That is useless. He should have applied POR15 to the bare metal first and then applied Bondo.

Take all the with a grain of salt. I am NOT a body guy, but I have done some amateur stuff here and there. Do your research on doing body work, figure a form of attack.

As for your front fenders, you are probably better off replacing the fenders (they bolt on to the car, unlike the re-quarters). And the rear quarters, there might be some benefit cutting out the bad areas and welding in new steel. Some food for thought.

 

Thank you for the advice. I decided not to paint the area. Instead I wiped the area down with 91% isopropyl alcohol and put some Renaissance Wax on the areas i sanded. Renaissance wax is good stuff, I use it on my sword to keep it from rusting and its used by museums to keep priceless objects from succumbing to the elements, so i spread some of that on there pretty thick, and I will apply as needed, but its waterproof and it hardens and it creates a seal between the metal and the elements so that should buy me some time. That way i dont have to sand it anymore, and I can protect it, killed two birds with one stone. I noticed black rust underneath the brown rust, and I head this rust was good as it doesn't spread like brown rust and it prevents further rusting on those spots, but I had already removed most of it by that time.

When i prepare to paint, I will put POR15 over those spots first, then bondo and paint as you suggested. and yeah, I went and felt the metal on the wheel well, that metal is THIN. I mean I believed you when you said it was thin, but to actually feel how thin it was for myself was eye opening, that's why i decided not to paint it yet. I will wait until I have the proper paint to do the job right.

I could replace the front fenders, that would save me a lot of time and headache, I may just do that anyways, I found some on a site called carparts.com, I also found a front and rear bumper which i need, especially my rear bumper. Is there no way to replace the bigger side panel on the monte? the one that goes over the door and the rear wheel well? This here:

https://www.gmpartscenter.net/v-2003.../body--uniside

 

I had a need to check for replacement Monte rocker panels. I checked a variety of sources (GM themselves, Mill Supply and some random internet stuff). No one made the metal rocker panels, the only source of new parts was to buy the entire quarter panel. That was a BIG no-go for me.

So if you are looking for brand new steel, the entire quarter is the only way. BUT.... You could look into:
1. - A good body shop that can either fabricate just a repair piece and fix it up (or you can try if you have a welder and feel like playing).
2. - Have a body shop source what they need to fix it (such as a salvage panel).
3. - Replace the entire quarter (I do know a father and son team that did that themselves, but the son is a professional body guy).
4. - Try and source a southern panel. You could try a site like car-parts.com.

 

If the panels under the ground fx are rotted enough then i will just have them cut that steel out and weld new in, since it will never be seen, it doesnt really matter how it looks too much. I'm not sure if the quarter panel is welded in or is held in with bolts like the front quarter panels, if its bolted in, then I might consider it at some point, but if it wleded in, then I think i will just leave it alone.

I had a question, when I jack the car up, what other jack points can I use? also I'm buying these jack stands:
EDIT: Here is a list of stuff I plan on getting for my repairs and the POR-15 application:

Not sure if I will need to take the wheels off or not but if i do then I will buy this:
and I was wondering where i can put these. Im buying two pairs for extra safety. I was thinking the jack stands could be put on these steel rails here, they seem structural so I think that would be sturdy enough, but i';m not sure.