Army,

Truly impressive job.

I am inspired to remove the whole subframe now to de-rust and rust proof the whole thing with POR-15.

How long would you say this whole project took you?

I did the '85s front end and now would love to do this complete of a job on the rear. I fear this a long long project....Or it may be one of those things that doing the entire thing is not that much harder than doing it one bit at a time under the car.

How long did it take you to re-align the subframe?

dd

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'85 300D, 'Lance',250k, ... winter beater (100k on franken-Frybrid 3 Valve Kit)
'82 300D, 'Tex', 228k body / 170k engine ... summer car
'83 300TD Cali Wagon 210k, wife's car

I really took my time doing the subframe as well as the front suspension, power steering pump rebuild, new brake lines + rebuilt the calipers (one of which has failed - the bugger), cleaned out and removed the fuel tank, new fuel lines all the way to the injectors + new injectors, fitted an electric cooling fan, and I've been slowly stripping off that horrible plastic undercoating and assessing the condition of the chassis. So it is a bit difficult to give you an accurate assessment.

HOWEVER if I'm being positive and nothing goes wrong I'd say it is possible in a weekend so long as you've got the parts. If you need to go shopping you've probably blown it!

The surprising thing about the subframe job is just how light it is - remove the diff and it is quite easy to fling it about like Mr Schwarzenegger might do his car mechanics. The only real problem is getting it out from under the car - which for my case was only on axle stands. I found it best to lower the subframe and diff onto chunky bits of wood and bricks until I could drag it sideways out from under the car. I positioned the axle stands under the rear jacking points to start off with but found it better to have them positioned behind the rear wheels on the "chassis rail" close to the bracket for the joint between the flexible brake line and the hard one.

Once you've got the subframe out and you've cleaned it up and painted it get some cavity wax for the inside - there is access via a little rubber bung in the middle upper surface of the subframe.

Don't be too upset about scratching your new paint - it is quite likely to happen. (I'm sorry to report) I spent some time with more POR 15 underneath the car once it was re-assembled.

Fitting the subframe on to the car is best done with the diff on. I tried to fit the diff to the subframe once it was in place but when working under a car on axle stands - well shall I say a waste of time? My method of re-aligning the subframe was to raise it slowly on to more bricks and wood until I got the height right:-

Charmalu says to use 3 jacks. I guess this is best - I've only got one jack - so I used what was to hand. Be careful with such methods - jacks are likely to be way way safer.

Even so once you've got the subframe at the correct height you'll find it possible to lift the two front points (that have the bushings) by hand. The bullet like pins are sometimes a bit stubborn at this point - tap them into place with a hammer - and I mean tap NOT hammer! Once you've got one of these pins in place you can do them up hand tight and then do the other one.
Watch the height of the diff and make sure that is in line with the mounting holes - if it is nearly there it helps with the pin alignment.

I hope this helps and isn't another case of too much information...

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!