Woohoo, back on the road again!

[Armitage]

Okay so it wasn't down for much more than a month for this part, but this has been an ongoing project for the last 9 months or so. I just got #960 back on the road after a day of frustrating work and went for a test drive so I just had to celebrate!

I just finished installing another (yea, I did this once before already) rear subframe due to some damage to my old one. Those upper control arm tabs aren't very beefy. Anyway, I changed every single bushing back there with Energy Suspension Poly as well as the group buy subframe and differential bushings. Wow, what a HUGE pain the ass it was to install those bad boys. Also changed out two ball joints on my LCAs and threw in a new-to-me lower mileage (75k) 4 bolt rear diff. Wirebrushed and painted up the new subframe (sorry no pics of the finished product), installed new axle seals and a wheel bearing and she's feeling like a new car only better now. Can't wait to get an alignment now and see how it feels in the corners after all this work.

Going a little further back over the winter, I changed out the 200k mile original (but still running) motor with a rebuild, new turbo, injectors, all new front bushings everywhere, new front subframe, rebuilt steering rack, completely removed all ABS components and A/C components, switched over to MAF-T, CMPE turbo-back exhaust, the group buy C/F JDM replica vented hood, and a bunch of other stuff. So she should be good and ready for another 200k now!

 

[Rausch]

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/worthy.gif Very nice indeed. Car looks (and now probably drives) Amazing! Excellent work!!!!!

 

[CarRacer]

Sweet. Those aerocatches look nice on the hood.

 

Nice. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif How did you bend the rear subframe? 1101's rear subframe was bent when I got it.

Is that a thicker rear sway bar or just the stocker? Get a thicker rear bar if you don't have one, its a big improvement.

 

[Armitage]

Thanks guys! The first subframe I bent many years ago doing some drifting in the snow. Hit a buried median I didn't know was there. The UCA tabs got bent pretty badly. I got a replacement from Vermont and threw it in.

When I went to get an alignment recently (first one in at least that many years), the eccentric bolts had rusted solid into the bushing sleeves. The shop damaged one of those little U-shaped hoops that scribes the path of the eccentric bolt trying to unseize the bolt then they gave up. I then tried using a ball joint press to get the seized up bolt out after everything else failed (PB Blaster, torch, impact gun, etc.), and that ended up bending the UCA tabs again! I would have replaced the subframe anyway after the alignment shop f'd it up though.

Anyway every single bushing has been replaced and every single bolt, sleeve, etc. has been treated with anti-seize. The swaybar is from a DSM so it's *marginally* thicker than the GVR4 one IIRC, but it's certainly not a big improvement. The one other thing I would have liked to do was get the weld-in passive toe eliminator but I guess Larry doesn't make them any more.