4g61t.org

sitting down with my bowl of popcorn watching greatness in progress!!

I take it to my friend who runs a "driveline" shop. He rebuilt the diff., transfer case, four axles, and says that my driveshaft will be appropriately shortened with a CV in the middle just behind the bearing support for pick-up tomorrow. If I were to try it, I would go to the Haynes manual for '90 Eclipse.

It's looking great Bill.

Awhile back, we were talking about springs and dampers. Here is a shot of what I have:

I never could get a metal sleve to go in side the damper bushing with that odd angle from the stud post connection. However, I did find an unused urethane bushing that seems to fit well. So, I'll take a chance and go without the sleeve. What's the worst that could happen?

OK. Now I can start on fabricating strong mount points for the rear under carriage for the "moustache" frame and the "boomerang" bar. By the way, I followed the lead of others and welded on a 90o support bar to add strength and stiffness to the boomerang. There shouldn't be any flex on this one.
The first job is to get all of the OEM undercarriage out. This means all wheels, brakes. fuel and brake lines, and parking brake. (The fuel tank and connections were already out.) Get the rear axle out. The rear control arms are a pain. I cut them off about 2" from the nut and bolt to get at the nut easier. You need some heavy torque! Air tools, spray, and a long breaker bar inside a long pipe help. They will come! Anyway the area should look something like this with the stuff removed:

If you look closely, you can see that there is a plate through which a bolt goes that holds the rear control arms on each side. These plates need to be removed.
I think that the easiest way is to take out the spot welds. There are 6 welds: Five in a line on top and one lower. Warning: Cut out all of the weld. Even a little edge will hold that thing. Use a special spot weld drill bit. (I had a lot of trouble. I used a regular bit that wasn't large enough. Missed one weld that sat lower than the rest.) Here are pics of the plate mounting for the rear control arms that is to be removed.

Here is a pic of the welds removed:
Last is a pic of cutting off the under part of the frame edge to get everythig evened up and workable.

From here we can start to refabricate a strong base. Later.

OK. Moving right along. The next thing was to construct a mounting point for the undercarriage mounting bolts.
After the under-area was clear, we started on the fabrication of a "box" to provide a mounting surface. The first step was to make a base plate support. For this we simply welded in 90o bars on the front and outboard sides. Here is a pic:

Next, we cut plates to be welded onto the top of the support edges. Here is John cutting plate.

Here are the plates attached to the support.


Then the rear sides were cut and welded in. This pic is from the rear of the plate looking in.

This pic is the same, but as seen from the median to outboard showing the last area to be "boxed" in.

We now took the new suspension posts and cut them down somewhat and cleaned off the edges to fit within the box space ready for welding.

We pulled the rear suspension into position with the bolts stuck through. We generally established the position using four simultaneous plumb bobs (one on each corner) to get things
equally centered. We then marked the bolt post outline on the box bottom with a felt marker. (You can see the marks around the hole in the pic.

We then let the undercarriage down and circle drilled holes to accept a raised ring around the bottom of the bolt posts. (Make this hole a little larger to permit final position placement.)
Then we lightly bolted the posts to the under carriage suspension and worked it into place and made tacs. We unbolted the under carriage, took it down, and welded the bolt posts onto the suspension box.

Finally got the inboard box sides covered. Then took some more plate, heated it , and hammered it to form a curved length to cover edges of the outboard framing.

here is another shot, but you need to turn it 90o.


Now the hard part is done!

Bill are you guys fortunate enough to have a lift or is all of this being done on jackstands (I see one pictured)? Also the pic of the guy by the saw looks like his ring finger is missing . If it really is missing forget I said anything.

No lift. sob. Yeah, John posed for the four-finger "shocker" symbol (just kidding). It's just a photo annomally.

Your doing your the exact same way i did mine. It should turn out awesome. Keep us updated.

Which method did you use to detemine the height of the mounts in relation to the chassis?

Sorry to be so long. Actually, I didn't place it. My guru Ross did; so i had to ask him. It was "guesstimate". We had put the undercarriage in place using straps and a jack. He manuevered it to a point where there was clearance from the top of the diff. to the floor section and the top of the flange of the diff./drv.shft. connection was around the top of the drive shaft tunnel. I have measured it and it is 3" down and 11/2" up, if that helps. I have a "pinky" edge clearance to the top of the diff. and a steel tape runs straight from the top of the driveshaft tunnel to the top of the diff./drvshft. connection flange.
Oh yes, he also looked at other pictures. I am sure that one was from Red Sleeper. We're not proud. We'll copy anybody.

there was another thing that I forgot to mention. My guru added a steel tube welded across or between the two "boxes" to add stability. Well, I tried to post a pic. but the Gallery won't show the one selected. If you are really interested, go to the Gallery. Sorry.

Looks awesome so far Bill. Good luck, (as if you need it from the pics seen so far), and don't forget to keep us updated!

Looking good bill, awd swap is always a good thing,lol. I have a question though, since I'm going to experince the same thing and I know I probably said this already on another thread but, I want to know on your feedback about having the rear awd assembly lined up straight when doing this.

What trick are you going to do to make sure this is going to be straight as possible? I'm still unsure how I'm going to do this but my problem is that I have a hyundai elantra. When I went to a local junkyard, I looked at both the CSM rear end the hyundai elantra which they match up the same. So hopefully from all the AWD projects I've seen so far from CSM's that I will be able to do the same on the hyundai. What's your take on this Bill?

Sorry to take so long; I was visiting friends in Georgia. Trying to center the rear suspension was not a special "trick",rule, or measurement. I said before that we used 4 plumbs, but actually it was six. The first two were from the identical inboard spots on each side where the rear bumper connects. So the plumb to any same outboard spots, on the same plane, should measure the same. We attached another two from the damper (SHOCKS) attachment studs on the hubs. Attach all the way in so that they are in the same spots on each side. The last two were from a point on the "MOUSTASHE" bar at the point where the mounting stud bushing housings connect at the ends.
We had the rear suspension suspended with two tie down belts and a jack suport. From there it was "just" a problem of getting each set of any two plumbs to be equal while the moustashe bar mounting points were in the desiginated area on the fabricated boxes.. We knew just about where the main support studs were to be located. We dropped the mounting studs into the bushing holes an retained them with finger-tight nuts. We worked the suspension into an alignment, and marked the outline of the stud plates (or flanges) with a felt marker so that when we let the suspension down, we could put the stud flange in place, mark and drill a circle hole (allow some extra) so the flange would fit flatly on the fabricated "box" and WELD that sucker in. From there the rear suspension should all line up equally. Anyway, that's how we did it.
Then, with the "boomerang" bar attached to the diff., we could determine where we wanted the diff. cross support bar to go. We set that bar in place and marked the spot for the "boomerang" bar stud to be located. Took the bar down, drilled through, dropped in a bolt and welded it to the support bar. Then welded the support bar into position on the car.
Finally, we could install the whole suspension by pulling it into position and jacking it up until each set of studs passed through the bushings. Add the nuts, and DONE!