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Yeah I'm just mentally preparing myself at this point as I'd be doing it myself. I haven't touched the trailing or leading arms yet, and those are pretty corroded/seized on there. I may just get an angle grinder at that point and cut them in half and unbolt the remaining from the knuckles. There's just no way I can cleanly remove them from the subframe. Maybe if I order some Kroil from Amazon and just soak it for days, but even then there's no guarantee of it coming out smoothly.
I have a listing saved of a pretty clean one in that price range. My two worries would be removing those heavily rusty trailing/leading arms, and dropping the exhaust that has probably never been unbolted in 190k miles..
Those two things aside I can knock this out in a couple hours as everything else is new. I just know something will heavily go wrong when I touch those two things that I fear the most.
I think losing sleep over it is probably going to be worse than when you get under there and find a solution.
Not tryna be a dick but this scenario is precisely why if there's any chance in hell for me to...I do all my own stunts.
Most techs are not skilled or lack desire or pride in their work. If someone is gonna give it a go it might as well be
a guy that cares most if MY car is okay when it's all done.
Angle grinder will only work in certain areas and not certain other areas. Believe me, I have been down there and watched someone do it in real time. You will need a sawzall with a long blade, that's the only way to get in between the frame and the bushing sleeve to cut it out. An angle grind's disk is not flexible like a sawzall blade. And second, you will need to pre-spray all the bolts with penetrant, many days continuously in a row, or it will be a real battle. Get yourself new bolts for every single connection point. And you will need a serious rear end alignment after that.
Angle grinder will only work in certain areas and not certain other areas. Believe me, I have been down there and watched someone do it in real time. You will need a sawzall with a long blade, that's the only way to get in between the frame and the bushing sleeve to cut it out. An angle grind's disk is not flexible like a sawzall blade. And second, you will need to pre-spray all the bolts with penetrant, many days continuously in a row, or it will be a real battle. Get yourself new bolts for every single connection point. And you will need a serious rear end alignment after that.
Like I've said, 90% of it is already new bolts from when the lower and upper adjustable arms went in. And when I say I want to cut it out, I'm not talking from the bushing. I want to cut the actual arm in half as I'd order new ones for that as well. I can get the half removed from the knuckle, but I can give two shits about what is still connected to the old subframe. To be honest I'd probably go back to all non-adjustable arms with this.
Originally Posted by rockstar143
trade it into carmax
I mean it's honestly crossed my mind at this point, but I'm so close to being done with it, and I've already invested too much to just get rid of it.
Yeah... I think I'm gonna put a hold on that rear subframe swap and deal with what I have now. I took the car back to the shop and they let me get it on the lift for 5 minutes to take some pics. The first pair of pictures isn't too bad, it's the second pair that will show why I'm not doing it.
Lateral arm rust/bolts rust:
Exhaust practically welded together by rust:
I'm not sure what the going rate of this car is nowadays, but I'm not heavily contemplating selling it seeing how it's in an acceptable driving condition. Not perfect, but not bad either.
My biggest hurdle of fixing it now would be those exhaust bolts to drop the exhaust, there's just no way of getting those bolts out of there.
The only other thing I can think of is cut the exhaust a little bit after that where the piping is perfectly straight, and either put an exhaust clamp to bring the two together when I go to reinstall, or take it to an exhaust shop. I don't have experience with either of those options.
that's what I'm fuckin talkin about!
That's great! So they didn't charge you for an hour of labor and they basically made a customer for life that will probably get others to go to them.
That's a feel good story!
I'm honestly still surprised he got it done, and it was so fast as well. It took him maybe 10 minutes to come back in and say it's all ready to go for when I need to remove it.
Now the situation currently is: Do I DIY the subframe myself (already purchased and have done such a job on my old S2000), or do I take it to the shop and get it done for $375 out the door in labor.
Everything is starting to ship out. I also said fuck it and purchased some factory non-adjustable arms from RockAuto, including new trailing arms. Alongside those arms I dropped another $60 on bolts, this time for the lateral arms and main subframe bolts, among other bolts that are old and I want to replace.
I'm keeping the upper adjustable arms though cause A) Finding replacements are damn expensive and B) I still have the old stock arm I'm going to match it to again and tell the alignment guys to not touch it.
I had the upper camber SPC single arm...if I were going through everything you did though, I might consider just leaving well enough alone and keeping stock spec with just the toe bolt
The upper adjustable arm is just as good as a stock arm when I make it stock length and keep it there, right? Regardless all the alignment shops near me were damn clueless at my whole aetup, which is a big reason I'm mainly going back to stock everything, and that one adjustable arm at stock specs.
I was also looking at the Harbor Freight electric impact wrench to just remove the bolts to speed up the process, but I'm not sure how useful 200 ft lbs of tq would be in this application. I know there are electric impacts in the $150-200 range that have 600-700 ft lbs of tightening, and 1,200-1,400 ft lbs of loosening so 200 ft lbs seems a wee bit low.
Just let them adjust the upper arm if needed. Maybe your rear springs are sagging.
And you won't be able to get it perfect.
They SHOULD try not to adjust the uppers unless they need to....but they might need to, is what I'm saying. The stock toe adjuster also adjusts camber.
With new arms, it should all be in spec unless something else is worn or bent.
And again...make sure you don't tighten those bushing bolts for any of the arms with the wheels up in the air. Or you'll be buying arms again in a few months.
Just when I thought things were looking good, everything comes crashing back down.
I've been noticing a weird pop lately in the front end, so tonight I decided to took in my wheel wells with a flash light. To put it simply, I find this with my passenger side front control arm:
My drivers side looks like this:
Now before I lose my mind at this point, please tell me this is simply the wrong sized bolt/missing spacer on the passenger side and not the fact that the hole in the front subframe has been enlarged where the bolt is meant to go through the bushing.
Both sides have the wrong nut, with missing cam plate. These aren't my pictures but you get the idea. Both sides should have a locking nut with a nylon insert, with a cam plate with a dial on it. I've never seen the bolt completely taken out, but I believe the hole is big for the eccentric bolt to move freely. I really don't know what hillbilly did this job for you. I suggest you buy the right parts first, before driving back to a good place to get this looked at. Get 2 new OEM eccentric bolts and nuts, GO TO AN ACURA DEALER to get the parts and ask a tech in person about this. It looks like, they cut the bolts off, but slapped on some regular 2 bolts and 2 nuts, and the nut on one side is WAYYYYY too small. You should always be prepped with extra bolts when suspension work is being done. I pre-bought these same bolts and nuts in the past for the same work.
OMG... W T F.... I can't seem to keep up with your suspension issues. You better go and get your full refund from the hillbilly place. Same deal for the front. That looks like the inboard side of the triangle lower control arm. You need at least OEM bolts. There might have been welded on nut on the frame, but I don't recall now. Look at the OEM diagrams on https://www.acuraautomotiveparts.org/ and study them carefully.
I went ahead and ordered the OEM bolt, washers, and nut I need.
Looking at it from just that angle, the hole simply looks enlarged. I don't know what the OEM bolt/washers can do if the bolt will still be moving around on the inside.
Ugh what a dumb fucking mechanic that guy was to do this much damage.
Front and rear subframe, new rear OEM control arms, and new rear leading arms. For everything that was done on my car within a 7 (maybe 8 week?) period:
Front End
Subframe & 3 motor mounts (1 came practically new with the replacement subframe)
Lower & upper control arms
Inner & outer tie rods with new steering rack boots
Ball joints
Brembo calipers
Swaybar end links
Radiator & radiator fan
Rear End
Subframe
Upper adjustable control arms
OEM lower control arms
Leading arms
Swaybar end links
With the shocks & springs as well as front axles being changed last year, practically everything underneath the car suspension & chassis wise has been refreshed. New OEM bolts also went in for everything that was changed.
Last edited by LightKiosk; 08-23-2018 at 10:36 PM.
I always noticed my steering wheel was more sensitive turning one way than the other, so I did a simple test. I locked the wheel all the way to the left, and I locked the wheel all the way to the right.
I learned that the wheel stops much shorter going to the right compared to the left. If I had to say, I'd pin it as 45 degree angle locked to the right, and almost 90 degree angle locked to the left.
Is this an alignment thing, or am I just overthinking it?
I always noticed my steering wheel was more sensitive turning one way than the other, so I did a simple test. I locked the wheel all the way to the left, and I locked the wheel all the way to the right.
I learned that the wheel stops much shorter going to the right compared to the left. If I had to say, I'd pin it as 45 degree angle locked to the right, and almost 90 degree angle locked to the left.
Is this an alignment thing, or am I just overthinking it?
Did they center the steering rack after/whilst replacing the subframe?
The question is, did you get an alignment done on the car? You need a 4 wheel alignment after changing out the front and rear sub frames. The entire suspension setup moved.
The question is, did you get an alignment done on the car? You need a 4 wheel alignment after changing out the front and rear sub frames. The entire suspension setup moved.
The turning radius is not the same. Turning one side is obviously more sensitive compared to the other, combined with the steering wheel like that, leads me to believe something either wasn't installed properly or aligned properly.
I'm going into the shop tomorrow that did my front subframe as they want to look over it.
08-04-2018, 10:21 PM
