andyb5

Yeah the link / page broke during one of the recent site refreshes. I think I have a copy of the original saved, let me look. 

On 9/5/2023 at 3:13 PM, nissanoo0 said:

Hi mate, can you repost the link pls?

On 9/26/2023 at 1:29 AM, Lawrnx said:

The link isn't working here on my end either.

Pics no work

On 1/10/2022 at 7:58 AM, RobT5M said:

Anyone have a pigtail for a 98-00 x70 headlamp they're not using? 

Or parting a vehicle with one?  

 

I'm going to etch my ABM projector lense, and start offering it as a service (if anyones interested here), want to make sure the light output isnt effected or if it is, by how much. 

I’m 99% I’ve got one at home. Ping me during the week to remind me to check. If I do, I’ll happily mail it to you no charge 

5 hours ago, RobT5M said:

I wish I could neg rep you -.-

Gotta love Spam in the morning, whos got the eggs and potatoes?

You can’t give neg rep ? 
 

Weird - I can using chrome on iphone

On 9/8/2021 at 9:29 AM, flyfishing3 said:

remember when we would flood TB and create all kinds of shit lol and Vice Versa.

That was always super entertaining 

Okay, now it's actually time for the subframe installation and repairs to the damage caused by the control arm coming out.

I drove to my buddy's house to do the work in his driveway.  On Saturday morning, I got my car up on jack stands, then got the HF engine bar in place, and started disassembly to remove the subframe, the control arms, the steering rack + tie rods, and the motor/transmission mounts.  The front swaybar (stock 20mm with Energy Suspension poly bushings) would come out and get transferred over to the new subframe.

By Saturday evening, I had the old parts removed and the new subframe assembly nearly ready to install.

To get the AWD-style front engine mount to bolt onto the FWD subframe, there is a small nub on the bottom that contacts the control arm bushing bracket.  It quickly gets trimmed off, and problem solved: 

Starting again on Sunday morning, the new subframe had everything installed, and ready to get installed.

Here's the list of new parts for anyone who is interested: 
Custom powder-coated FWD subframe w/ AWD transmission mount bracket and BNE Dynamics Delrin subframe bushings, OEM engine mounts, OEM 99 AWD transmission mount, TRW remanufactured FWD steering rack with inner tie rods, TRW outer tie rods, Lemforder end links, 93 850 aluminum control arms, new Meyle HD ball joints, new OEM ball joint bolts, and new hardware for everything else.

Here is where things started to go sideways...

With the subframe lined up and close to installed, I realized the rear engine mount on the FWD steering rack was hitting the downpipe and preventing the rack from moving upwards into position:

Knowing that I would have to remove the whole assembly, that was enough to stop my progress for the weekend.  

Here's how it sat for a week until I could get back to work on it

Now, in the process of removing the power steering feed line from the rack a 2nd time in the weekend, the o-ring that seals the line into the the rack was damaged.  So I looked up the part number, called the local dealership and ordered a couple of o-rings. 

I got the o-rings picked up and the next weekend, I started work on my car again.  Once the rack/subframe assembly was out of the car, I cut the rear engine mount bracket off the steering rack:

Shot it with some black paint to make the cut blend in and soothe my OCD after hacking up a brand new steering rack:

When I went to install the new o-ring on the power steering feed line, it was too small and didn't fit.  Turns out, I gave them the wrong part number .  I had to re-order the right o-rings, so that stopped my progress on re-assembling the subframe for the weekend.

When the control arm came out and the wheel got ripped backwards, the fender was yanked outwards as well.  I posted some photos of the cosmetic damage in my earlier post.  What also happened was that the lower fender bolt bracket got yanked out of the chassis and the captive nut was broken. You can see that at the bottom of the fender here:

I was able to find a "license plate nut" at Advance Auto Parts that fit properly and allowed me to bolt the fender back in place.

The fender still needs to be replaced, but this kept the lower portion from flapping around as badly as it did before.

I also took the opportunity to drain my ~2 year old OEM transmission fluid and replace with Redline Lightweight Shockproof.  This calibrated syringe from FCP makes providing the proper 2.1 L of fluid incredibly easy and was a great purchase.

I had also noticed that the top mount of the passenger side coilover had gotten a small bend in the accident.  Given that my CX Racing coils had been installed for a while and were starting to get rusty, so I decided to replace both front coilovers to be safe.  As an unplanned purchase, I couldn't justify JRZs, or even BCs, so I decided to give the Maxspeedingrods non-dampening adjustable coilovers a chance.  At $270 shipped, it was worth the gamble.

The shipped super quickly, which really was a pleasant surprise for free shipping. They looked alright so I got them installed on the car - I'll share some more detailed thoughts if anyone is interested.

I HATE the way the orange powdercoating looks on the car compared to the black CX coils, but it's not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.

Then, on the THIRD weekend of this project, I had the correct PS o-ring and was able to get everything reassembled.  

Safe to say, it made a tremendous improvement to how the car rides and handles.  Between the delrin subframe bushings, fresh control arms, new steering rack / tie rods, the front end feel of the car is totally transformed for the better.  My dash mounts are pretty destroyed, and this nearly eliminated all the squeaking over rough roads.

Next post I'll talk about alignment / new tires / unexpected issues portion of the subframe install saga...

On 7/28/2021 at 5:25 PM, Commander Riker said:

I'm just glad you are ok.  It's fixable and I'm glad you didn't meet that guard rail or another car in a bad way.

Apologize if it's known, but what's the lure of switching to the FWD subframe?

Thanks!  I was lucky to be in the middle lane and have time to control everything before stopping.

On 7/29/2021 at 10:19 AM, bmdubya1198 said:

Mostly for the 2-bolt control arms, IIRC. I believe they're the same as the AWD subframe, otherwise.

Yeah, that's pretty much it.  The only real difference is the 2 bolt vs 4 bolt control arms, otherwise, they basically the same part.  And as anyone who has put an M66 in these cars knows, the driver side rear bolts are tough to get a wrench on without moving the M66 out of the way.  The 2 bolt arms offer a lower cost to replace plus have more aftermarket performance upgrade options available (Powerflex, BNE Dynamics, etc).  

On 7/28/2021 at 11:33 PM, lookforjoe said:

Dang. Indeed, you were fortunate!

The same thing happened to my daughter's 99 V70 AWD about 7-8 years ago - Driver's side balljoint came out of the knuckle - bolt still in place, she took pics of the carnage - and fucked up EVERYTHING. She was also lucky that it happened at low speed. She junked the car though - this was in Orlando & no way  I could get there to fix it for her.

Oh man that's never a good situation, glad to hear your daughter was alright though!  

That sucks dude!

Try to surround the car or even the perimeter of your garage with moth balls. Small animals hate the smell and will almost always stay away. 

On 7/6/2021 at 2:01 PM, bmdubya1198 said:

Extremely fortunate is right! That could have gone way worse.

No other cars around, got stopped safely - yeah, could've gone way worse for sure.

On 7/7/2021 at 3:17 PM, Ol' Dirty Noodle said:

Dude… the fuck???

Right?  Such a weird failure.  I apparently excel at finding strange ways to break my car.

On 7/13/2021 at 9:33 AM, apeacock said:

Fuggin  a bro. At first i'm like, did the new welds break??

The subframe with the new welds hadn't even made it onto the car yet  

On 7/13/2021 at 11:35 AM, RobT5M said:

Jesus man, something like this is exactly why ive gone ahead and ordered all new front suspension for the wagon.  
The rusty shock mounts are sketching me out.

I'm glad you're ok, the car seems to have been fairly saved surprisingly.

This definitely upped my paranoia about random failures - I haven't touched the front suspension in a year or so....
And yeah, definitely a good call to get that all replaced on your car, since rusty shock mounts seem like bad news.  

On 7/14/2021 at 12:43 PM, flyfishing3 said:

wow. crazy.

 

could have been a 1000 times worse.

 

Glad your OK.

Thanks!  Yeah, sucks it happened but all things considered, the outcome was decent.

A couple friends have quick jacks. I’ve never put my car up on them, but having worked on other cars on them, they’re plenty stable - more so than regular jackstands.
 

If you’re buying a pair, the 12V model is apparently the best lift speed and you can power it from your car battery or even a jump pack if needed. 

They do come with riser blocks of different heights if you don’t want to lift your car directly with the jack “platform” on the pinch weld. 

Thanks Alex!

Okay, so it's not quite time for the subframe install just yet....  

I was headed to my soccer game on a Tuesday night in May. I  had only made it about 1 mile from my apartment when I went over a large bump at 55-60 mph. I heard/felt an unusually loud sound from the passenger side of the car.  It was kind of like I had a flat tire, but worse.  I quickly got the car slowed down, then pulled over to the shoulder and got out.  This is what I saw: 

Left behind a pretty noticeable skid mark from dragging the tire:

After a quick roadside assessment, it looked like the ball joint came out of the knuckle, then the loss of restraint caused the wheel to snap around, separating the axle at the inner CV.  There wasn't any obvious damage to the caliper, rotor, brake line, tie rod, control arm, knuckle, or coilover.  Besides the axle, everything looked suspiciously okay.  That was enough for me think I could cobble a fix together to limp it back home instead of getting a flatbed tow. 

I got a ride home and grabbed some tools and spare parts.  On the way back to my car, I was able to grab this shot of the skidmark my mangled tire left behind.  You can just make out my car stranded on the side of the road off in the distance.

I quickly jacked the car up, then removed the wheel, removed the damaged fender line, removed the bolt that holds the ball joint into the knuckle (somehow still tight and properly in place), then removed the outer piece of the axle.  Next, I pulled the inner portion of the PS axle, then stabbed in a spare OEM 99 PS axle I picked up from @apeacock a couple years ago.  

The ball joint bolt had been gouged away/worn out and allowed the ball joint to slide out of the knuckle.  Being stuck on the side of the road with the sun setting, I didn't have a spare bolt, so I rotated it 180* to put the worn side away from the ball joint, then tightened it down for the short trip home.

Seems like a lot of force would be needed for the bolt to deform like that.  I'm still not sure how that happened to be honest....

My tire was toast from being dragged for a couple hundred yards. Holy crap was it loud when I popped that bubble  
 

Pulled the tire from the rear, put the spare tire on the rear, and 45 minutes after starting work, my car and I were home safely.

After taking some time to really think through the night, I realized that despite the damage, I had been extremely fortunate.  I was able to get pulled over in a safe spot, get my car fixed and got home okay, and there weren't any other vehicles involved - things could've been much, much worse.  

Cosmetically, the passenger fender has a couple of issues that would need to be addressed. 

There is a dent at the wheel well lip, and there is a wrinkle further up where the tire pushed it out.  The paint on the bottom of the wheel well lip cracked in a few spots, 

So the fender will either need body and paint work or just outright replacement, and the side skirt had a chunk torn out that will need to be addressed at some point.

The good news is that I had most of what I needed to fix the mechanical side of things already in my possession.  To complement the new subframe, delrin subframe bushings, 93 aluminum control arms with new Meyle HD ball joints, I had planned to install a new TRW steering rack and inner tie rods, new OEM outer tie rods, new OEM engine mounts, new OEM transmission mount, new Lemforder endlinks, and finished off with a new set of 225/45/17 Michelin Pilot Sport All Seasons.

I ordered new OEM bolts for the ball joint to knuckle connection and three jugs of Redline Lightweight Shockproof from FCP to prepare for the subframe install.  I'll go through the installation of everything in my next post (for real this time)

For a long time I've wanted to swap in a FWD subframe to use 2-bolt control arms.  The drivers side 4-bolt arm is really challenging to access because of the M66 case. Several years ago I parted out a 99 V70 NA, and kept the subframe for this project.  I was finally able to get started on the project this winter.

Using a FWD subframe on an AWD car requires welding the AWD transmission mount bracket onto the subframe.  I made a template to locate the bracket on the FWD subframe, then cut the bracket off from an AWD subframe taken from a XC my friend parted out:

Once I had the bracket in place, I had to notch the bracket to fit around the control arm bracket, then drilled the holes in the subframe to allow for full engagement of the transmission mount bolts:

Then once everything was properly prepped and ready for welding, the bracket and subframe around the bracket were ground clean to remove the factory protective coating and 20 years of road grime.

Then I had a friend weld the bracket in place.  I think he did a fantastic job given the questionable cleanliness of the material he was working with:

I cut off some of the extraneous brackets and cleaned everything up to make it easier to work in/around.

Then I had a friend powdercoat the subframe to keep everything protected and looking good for years to come.  They blasted the subframe clean, then applied a zinc primer, the color powder, and gloss clear powder.

Everything came out looking fantastic.  I picked a grey powder with some metallic flake to it:

  

After being powdercoated, it was time to install a set of BNE Dynamics (Kaplhenke Racing) delrin subframe bushings.

I made a tool to install the bushings - one 3/4" bolt, a 3/4" nut, a three 3/4" fender washers, a 4" metal octagonal junction box, and two j-box covers.  Punch the knockouts out of the j-box and cover plates, then place the j-box above the bushing with one fender washer, drop the threaded bolt through the bushing, then two fender washers and j-box covers, and the nut.  Tighten the nut to drive the bushing into the subframe.  I used my M12 stubby impact and it made life nice and easy.  The cardboard is used to protect the powdercoat.

And the results - the bushings were seated perfectly, and no marks were left in the powder coat:
 

And with all four bushings installed, the custom subframe is ready for install:
 

Then I prepped a set of 93 850 aluminum control arms for install.  I picked up 4 or 6 sets a few years back, sold most of them, and kept a pair for myself.

I got a set of new ball joints, then torqued the bolts to spec (13 ft. lbs, then 120 degrees) and safety mark the orientation to ensure nothing comes loose:
 

The bushings were in decent shape, so I left them for now.  They'll get replaced with a set of Powerflex polyurethane bushings in the future.

I’ll talk about installing the subframe and some other work in my next post

Archived threads come up for me when I search the site like Greg described. Actually just looked thru a few from 2007/8 yesterday 
 

Never had good luck using the forum search feature and I’m not surprised that the site has slipped in terms of SEO/google results 

On 6/1/2021 at 8:19 AM, lookforjoe said:

Coming to EuroMeet in Ithaca this Month? Be great to see you & the wagon!

Wish I could make it, would be awesome to see you and catch up. Unfortunately I had already made plans before I knew the show was that day. 

Lookin so fresh and so clean!!

I’ve had good results emailing Chuck before, not sure how frequently he logs in to the site 

On 5/4/2021 at 8:56 AM, gmsgltr said:

nice - only powering 4 speakers though? 

Kinda. The stock Dolby system isn’t compatible. It hasn’t worked since I got the car, so I wasn’t too worried about that. I’ve debated trying to make the Dolby system work again but I don’t even know if the speakers are functioning so it’d be a total rebuild.

The 4 channels - front left, front right, rear left, rear right- are actually 2 speakers per channel so technically the head unit drives 8 speakers. That’s the same as any other non-Dolby setup in these cars.

A little while back I got a Kenwood DNR876S head unit. Pretty sweet little touchscreen setup with integral Garmin GPS and CarPlay / Android Auto, plus the usual mix of radio, usb, aux input, etc. No CD/DVD player though. 
 

Pictured is wireless CarPlay with navigation and streaming audio (no USB connection needed).  Plus it pairs up automatically when I get in the car. Definitely nice to get some more capable and modern ICE for daily driver duties then the single-DIN that came in the car.

On 3/29/2021 at 4:57 PM, flyfishing3 said:

Nice

Thanks Mike!

23 hours ago, Commander Riker said:

Man, car is looking beautiful.  Nice work.

 

Maybe I should rebuild mine. 

Do it! Can’t wait to see yours back on the road again 

20 hours ago, Fastboy512 said:

Dang! 

Thanks!!

16 hours ago, tighe said:

I love my Flir camera and have used it similarly.

https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/coolant-temperature-after-engine-shut-down.1022435/#post-11317859

That’s awesome, great use of your FLIR. Thanks for sharing that thread! I definitely plan to explore further into the temperatures of different engine bay components. 

On 3/28/2021 at 9:24 AM, quiksilver said:

Dang.

12 hours ago, apeacock said:

good stuff

1 hour ago, gmsgltr said:

beauty!

Thanks you guys, appreciate it!

Although this thing annoys me sometimes, it does clean up pretty nicely.  I finally got around to editing some photos from this fall and wanted to share them since I think they do a great job of showing the how incredible this paint color is during golden hour.

On 3/26/2021 at 1:33 PM, gmsgltr said:

Looking good!

 

Who makes the blue springs?

I am now even more confused about the springs rates etc. - Yes you are AWD and I am FWD 855 but still...

700lb/in spring is about 12,000kg/mm

I am not saying they are right or that their cheapo springs are actually the rates they say they are either but the BC Racing Kit which I am vetting for my car comes with 4,000kg/mm rears lol 

Those 700lb/in springs you've got shouldn't move at all then, right? Thats 3X the rate that comes on the BC Kit that is becoming so popular... 

Am I missing something?

A comparison between FWD and AWD is tough because the suspension is completely different. This means there’s no point in comparing the two spring rates. You want to compare how that spring rate gets applied to the wheels. So without knowing the motion ratio of each suspension setup, you can’t evenly compare the wheel rate. 
 

In this particular case, the awd IRS locates the spring further away from the wheel hub than the fwd delta link suspension. That increased distance means there’s a longer lever arm acting on the spring, so the awd spring needs to be stiffer to resist the wheel movement to the same degree as the delta link spring. 

Got a FLIR One as a birthday present from my fiancé and obviously I had to try it out on my car:

Turbo + downpipe:

These were taken after the car had been sitting for about 15 minutes after I got home. 

Another vote for JRZ. 
 

FWIW - You can buy individual coilover   assemblies from BC Racing so you could just buy the front BCs if you wanted something less pricey than JRZ or V3s

On 2/17/2021 at 2:21 PM, gmsgltr said:

Andy what spring rates are you running on your coilovers?

I have been reading about the BC racing sets... with swift springs... but unsure about all the rear spring rate options.

 

edit: I should say... the 5k front and 4k rear is how they come... from what little i know, that seems pretty soft

Greg - I have 5K front springs on my front CX coils.   They're kinda soft, not much firmer than stock.  Ride is comfy, and handles decently, but definitely leaves something to be desired in terms of body control relative to other coilovers I've experienced on these cars.  

The AWD rear is completely different, so I wouldn't have any meaningful input on rates. Check out this thread from SS for some pretty good discussion on spring rates: https://www.swedespeed.com/threads/coilovers-spring-rates.610761/#post-7452217

If you're considering BC's, I'd really lean towards the digressively valved DS series over the linearly valved BR series.  Should offer better body control (handling)  https://www.bcracing-na.com/articles/ds-series.  They offer both in P80 fitment and there's not much difference in price.