Subframe stuck

[Cletonius]

I had that same problem with my brake cables too, everything was rusted together. I torched them and sprayed penetrating oil. Rinse and repeat. Try to twist the thing after the area around is heated

[wakeboardr42393]

I can't see any harm in putting anti-seize on the new bushing. Although, I don't think it's necessary; if those bushings are original, they have been against the body for over 20 years. It's going to be a loonng time before it becomes a problem. and In the next 20 years, the car will probably be better taken care of than the first 20 years. I wil probably put some on when I put my subframe back on, just in case the car is still around 20 years down the road and someone else decides to do it. I like to put that stuff on anything that gives me a problem. :)

I'm in a similar situation with my parking brake cable ends stuck in my trailing arms. I think I'm going to have to drill them out to get the new cables in. I'll be putting anti-seize on the new ones (it's an automatic, it needs a parking brake lol)

[Cletonius]

If you don't want to do it again, now is the time to install braided brake lines and camber/toe correction tabs. If you plan to drive it hard and/or make more than stock power I'd buy the AKG or similar reinforcement plates and do that now as well. Also the right time to do a diff swap.

Having done this job 5 times on different E30's it gets way easier with practice. That said, I'm waiting 'till I have all the parts collected this time.

I bought a roll of the new hand bendable brake line and am already working on doing the hard lines. I have a braided kit from blunt as well.

For now I skipped the weld in tabs. I may pick up a second subframe assembly down the road and have it modified but we'll cross that bridge later...

For this job I bought 98% of everything needed up front. I got the full kit from GC, all bushings, ebrake cables, and a bunch of other maintenance bits. Seals, etc.

So far I've only had to buy bolts and a diff cover gasket that I didn't plan for. I have a 3.73 LSD already so I'm gonna stick with that for now.

I also took the opportunity to clean and paint everything while it was out too.

[mr2peak]

If you don't want to do it again, now is the time to install braided brake lines and camber/toe correction tabs. If you plan to drive it hard and/or make more than stock power I'd buy the AKG or similar reinforcement plates and do that now as well. Also the right time to do a diff swap.

Having done this job 5 times on different E30's it gets way easier with practice. That said, I'm waiting 'till I have all the parts collected this time.

[Cletonius]

I have the antiseize stick, I'll probably paint the aluminium sleeve.

I'm using revshift 80a bushings and the ones I just removed were factory installed 200k+ miles ago. Hoping to never do this job again.

[FredK]

There's no harm in putting antiseize in the cups that hold the subframe bushings. It will make removal a lot easier down the road.

[IronFreak]

Keep it off the bolts and you should be fine.

[Cletonius]

I ended up getting it out.

I broke off as much as I could with a chisel, then a ran a small drill into the aluminium. I then used a screwdriver and mallet to break out the bushing.

Once it was out we examined it. Looks like the installation glue from above managed to work its way into there somehow. Its clearly a tan glue like what was on top of the bolts inside the car.

Reassembly this weekend. Any harm in putting some antiseize in there ?

[wakeboardr42393]

I just did this a few days ago and had the same problem. The subframe was just hanging there with trailing arms attatched. It wouldnt' come off even after prying with pipe and jumping on it and playing with jack with it for a few hours. I searched the internet and found another idea:

First, I popped the bolts out with a hammer, this was easy, just tapped the bolts with regular hammer form the bottom. then, i got a sledgehammer and took some good whacks at the metal part in the bushing after i soaked them in penetrating oil for a bit. (no luck yet, but i feel that this hepled make the next part easier.) then got a piece of solid steel rod about 10-20 inches long, that would fit inside of the metal part of the bushing, stuck it about halfway in from the bottom side (no pun intended:dot:), and just pushed and pulled on the rod with all my might. after and few pushes and pulls, I saw some movement. so i just went to town pushing and pulling forcefully in alternating directions for a minute or 2, and it got progressively looser, having more movement, and finally fell out.

it wasn't very difficuly or time consuming using this method, after i figured it out. :). I tried this way because i already had a steel rod that fit pretty good.

[Cletonius]

got access to a slide hammer or can rent one? if you can get a pair of jaws in there, it would pop it out in a second. Alternative, cutting a thread and screwing in a bolt would have it out pretty quickly, but you might not have taps so you could probably try something like a big wood screw which will have a coarse tapered thread that should bind as you tighten it up. All you need is some twisting motion and I reckon it would pop free.

That's how I started. I threaded 5/8" lag bolts into the bushings and hit them from above. I'll see if there's enough material left to thread

[Madhatter]

got access to a slide hammer or can rent one? if you can get a pair of jaws in there, it would pop it out in a second. Alternative, cutting a thread and screwing in a bolt would have it out pretty quickly, but you might not have taps so you could probably try something like a big wood screw which will have a coarse tapered thread that should bind as you tighten it up. All you need is some twisting motion and I reckon it would pop free.

[Cletonius]

is the bolt still inside that of just the sleeve?

The bolts came out very easily, one hit. They had no corrosion whatsoever on them.

Yeah, that tends to happen on rusty cars. Just drill/chisel all of that old inner sleeve out. It's a complete PITA.

This is really the only issue, everything else has been fairly easy.

Edit: I'm thinking about trying to turn it with a pipe wrench. Good idea/bad idea?

[JGood]

Yeah, that tends to happen on rusty cars. Just drill/chisel all of that old inner sleeve out. It's a complete PITA.

[IronFreak]

is the bolt still inside that of just the sleeve?

[Cletonius]

This is what I've got: