engine and drivetrain Sucks to be me (broken left engine mounting point on subframe)

[Grover]

I absolutely agree with the others. Pick yourself up a halfway decent MIG welder and embark on learning another skill. Super rewarding. You'll pay it off by writing about it...

[arminyack]

The newer (black color) Harbor Freight MIG welders are actually decent! The older ones (blue) really sucked, but the Mig 180 I got is working great! I can do some great dime roll welds with that thing now. I just practiced, practiced on scrap metal until i got halfway decent!

Its great having one....the next task for me is custom seat brackets for the e30 sport seats I picked up. Doing this would be rough without it!

[MatthewCervi]

Much better.  Yeah, that was quick.

[stone02]

Whoa,

  wait a minute. who ever took that subframe out has taken off a few

too many bolts, if all you reall want to do is get back on the road.

there is no reason to take  the lower arms off the struts. this job is

about three hours and with an engine hoist it goes faster and less

shakey. even the motor mounts on the engine help to get the reinstall

going faster. three bolts on the steering box, six bolts on the actual

frame, four bolts on the sway bar, not the ends. then drop the inboard

end of the lower arms this way the old frame falls out. then install the

replacement frame. then you can learn to weld on the broken one

while the car is still mobile. dirty subframe for sale with no cracks

$100 plus shipping.

stone

 

 

[TobyB]

Yeah, what I didn't say was that the 'while you're in there' can turn into a front end refresh in a hurry.

 

I don't think I would have even unhooked the struts- just let the whole thing sag, weld it up, push it back into place...

 

Good job, Rob, you're almost done!

 

t

 

[thehackmechanic]

Stone, Toby, I thought about both of your approaches. Stone, I DID leave the LCAs attached, but I unbolted the struts. I'd even unbolted the calipers and hung them up, thinking I'd leave the struts attached and just drop 'em. Then I looked at my fenders and realized that I'd be doing this alone in the garage and wouldn't have another set of hands to guide the struts out from under the fenders and that the three studs on the tops of the shock tower bushings would probably scratch the shit out of the fenders when they came down. Also, I have a cheap Amazon lift table that I thought I'd use to keep the subframe stable as I dropped it, but it's blocked in under my back porch by my engine hoist, my spare tii engine, and my mountain of Lotus parts, so I just went for the drop using the floor jack instead.

[arminyack]

2 hours ago, thehackmechanic said:

Then I looked at my fenders and realized that I'd be doing this alone in the garage and wouldn't have another set of hands to guide the struts out from under the fenders and that the three studs on the tops of the shock tower bushings would probably scratch the shit out of the fenders when they came down.

I just did this by myself, and it was a PITA. Coming out was easy...guiding them as they went back in was another matter. It took forever....constantly going back and forth from raising the lift cart to going to check each side to make sure the struts we'rent binding up somewhere. Next time, I'll go back to the original method of unbolting the struts from the steering arms

[thehackmechanic]

HA! So I am SMART!

[conkitchen]