I drive a 2003 CL Type-S 6 Speed Manual, in Aegean Blue Pearl, quite a rare combination that looks beautiful even with its bodily imperfections. Obviously, with all of these models, the A/C drain unfortunately landed right above the front subframe in their design, and I understand almost every car has a design flaw, but it is a very rare part that I have to get custom built from Acura themselves. My subframe is so rusty that it cracked, and I was wondering if anybody had any ideas as to what would make the subframe go out on me? I’m asking this now, several months after I have bought the car, because I’m going to fix the subframe, because I worry it’ll go out on me before I get the chance to fix it.. any ideas??

I did the K frame, which is the actual name of the part you are looking to replace, on my 01 CL-S recently and I have some advice for you if you’ve never replaced a subframe before. Take both te front and the back of the sub frame out at the same time when taking it apart!! Lol. I didn’t do this and it took almost four times as long to put it back in than it did taking it out. Get a floor jack with a 2x4” and use that or a couple of those to help balance the motor and tranny wen dropping the frame out. THEN once the whole sub frame is dropped down, ten you can unbolt them and swap in te new one. Bolt them back together then put the completed frame back up. That right there will save you so much tome and thrown tools LOL.

I did mine the hard hard way and it literally took two whole days of fighting it. Also it might be easier to unbolt to motor mounts off the engine brace and drop the mounts down with the frame rather than to take them out and have to fight aligning them back again if you have larger hands where space is, in this engine bay VERY limited.

dorgot to add this in. I’m going to assume you’ve never taken this car apart like this before so here goes. Don’t forget that there’s some power steering line anchors on top of the sub frame you’re needing to replace. I think there should be three of them an are bolted down with a 10mm bolt. If you break that high pressure power steering line, it’s $150 or so from Oriellys ha ha ha. So careful with that. It’ll be really easy to get to the top of the steering rack if you take out the strut brace on top. There should be a couple hidden bolts underneath the wiper cowling in there, and from what I’ve read on here in a different post about how to bleed the lines, just hook everything back up, fill the resivoire up and turn the wheel lock to lock. Then add flui as needed. I forget how much fluid it holds but it’s not very much. Just top it off.

I hope your repair job goes super easy for you with no stupid issues like I had lol. Lesson learned