OTT

So, Ive bought a new cradle, front suspension included.
What I can't decide is how Im going to do the removal.

I want to remove my cradle, keep current cradle motor mounts but leave engine in, suspended by my hydraulic Engine crane. The thing is I dont want all the messing about with de-gassing and re-gassing the Air-Con, or draining the cooling system.

I was thinking of using a high-lift pallette push powered-forklift to lower the current one and raise the new etc.
But have any of you taken the cradle off for any reason before and how did you support the engine??

I will be using axle stands to secure the car up. BTW Cheers guys
Why did a red fiesta have to stop on the inside of a blind A-road bend! God-damnit


Modified by OTT at 12:13 AM 1/26/2004

OTT

..and how did you raise/lower the cradle?

Cheers

OTT

Think im going to have to use a hydraulic pallette lifter (Push/lever pump powered). ITs going to be the only way
I dont have a car lift unfortunately

Using the car on axle stands, the engine supported by engine crane and The cradle lowered using Pallette push-forklift thing!

This is going to be interesting! :-\

Any other Ideas???

OTT

Once capital persists from importing cars to Eng then I will will get a shop and fully kit it out!

Hey here the lude..

http://www.theforumisdown.com/...l.jpg



Modified by OTT at 9:07 PM 12/23/2003

OTT

that link wont be avail until the pic gets approved.

OTT

Right, heres what happened; as you can see the first pic shows my cradle on the car at the moment, the lower control arm mount has been pushed in about 1.5cm and two little spot welds on the PAS rack mount have ripped off.



and here the 'new'ish replacement how it looks in comparison (i.e. no kinks or popped spot-welds)...



Heres the replacment cradle before I gave it an hour of elbow grease and white h/d paper-roll....



This is after...
Ive still got to rust protect a couple of rust dots I wire brushed off of the front section..





And heres my new disks...
(To the guy that wanted to calipers; the ones on those new rotors are the set u can have mate; aint got round to weighting them yet!)



UPDATE: So next i need to take off my header, drain PAS rack (anyone know any specifics for the 4ws?) then I'll take it from there.

So anyone got any infor on draining the PAS rack?

OTT

bump ttt

yohan

the 4ws is only put in the back and is entirely electronicly controlled.

ill be honest, most of the first post makes no sense to me and I haven't been following this project ...

4WS is compeltely independant of the front steering system except for the sensors ..

In the front steering rack is a sub steering angle sensor, in the steering column is the front main, these feed to the ECU .. also is the vehicle speed sensor which routes to the power steering also I beleive ..

straight from the helms, i hope this helps out a bit.

OTT

Cheers for you reply Yohan, but I know how the system works,

Basically, it was wet, understeered into a kurb, smashed an alloy and was going to just change out the suspension.

Noticed the 'kink' in the metal on the laft lower control arm support so decided I might aswell change out the whole cradle otherwise it just wont handle like it should.

So Im about ready to instal the new cradle complete with PAS rack (power assisted steering) I'ld like to know if tere are any special proceedures for draining/filling, connecting and disconnecting the PAS rack.

yohan

Now that I dont know and wondered about myself as well .. There was a post on preludeonline where a guy changed out his steering rack from a worn seal, I asked the guy about it but will PM specifically on how he drained the power steering fluid ..

I would assume just do a power steering flush.. get all the fluid out and add some new stuff.. might as well since its all apart.

Sorry to hear about the bad luck.

OTT

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by yohan &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Now that I dont know and wondered about myself as well .. There was a post on preludeonline where a guy changed out his steering rack from a worn seal, I asked the guy about it but will PM specifically on how he drained the power steering fluid ..

I would assume just do a power steering flush.. get all the fluid out and add some new stuff.. might as well since its all apart.

Sorry to hear about the bad luck.</TD></TR></TABLE>


bad luck; heheh Sh*t happens

OTT

Well I've finally got rount to installing my new cradle, but I had to clean it up first.
So I stripped it into 3x pieces, degreased, cleaned and prepared the surface then selaed ten with hammeright sealant,
100% rust proofing, its very long lasting stuff! Heres the pics...

Cradle front section sealed; this is what I changed out first and kept the motor mount from the car:
The finish on this stuff is awesome! Remember that rusted bar further up the page?...



What a difference!!


New cradle rear section sealed without hydraulics just steering tie-rods and centre member:


Rear left of rear cradle section:


Steering arm closeup:


Sealed Steering Knuckles and grooved rotors, these things weigh a lot for what they are, no wonder the car weight 1300kgs:


Underside of new cradle ready for hydraulics to be fitted:


After fitting hydraulic lines:


Front Sub steering angle sensor:


Rear section of cradleall plumbed up and ready to go under:


Old cradle stripped of all its worth (good pipingand sub sensor, clamp bracked and connector bracket taken from it) looks pretty tired:


Under it goes! with rear motor mount attached:


A good Engine bay underside shot without the cradle inplace (thought Id get some picz in before I put it in) showing the main headers' O2 sensor connection (grey) and the green connector for the PAS system, Im not 100% sure what this does.



Ok lets see if you can spot a few things in this nextpic ppl:
Canyou see the....
*Rear motor mount bracked from engine block
*2x Power steering pipes
*O2 Sensor connector
*Gear shift linkage bracket that bolts to the cradle
*Steering shaft that gets bolted to the UJ on the cradle


Out of interest does anyone know what this drain is for
Note the blue connector is where the front sub steering angle sensor connects up to


Heres another detail pic from underneather;
Whats the black unit underneath the intake plenum anyone?
and what is the unit in the bottom left corner of the photo (which it rear left corner of the engine bay) and wat does it do?


Final 2x PAS lines being connected and clamped and green connector:


Undercarrige high qual shot showing all 3x parts installed, now compare that to the pic at the top of the page of the replacement when I first got my hands on it!


Engine bay shot with intake back on; Note: Man Im gonna have to give this a good clean with a damp cloth once ive done it all!
Very dust garage! Note: header heat sheild removed, and vaccum lines and hoses all clipped to the stock intake like they should be!
(can you see the beige check-vave clipped andlong the side of the intake!)


Fuesbox shot: Obviously theres a big difference in these JDMs as replacing a blown fuse and actually knowing what blew are two completely different things!


Well thats It so far, next I need t refill the system with the 5x bottles of steerig fluidfrom Honda and setup the sensors and get the alignment done!
After than, changeout the damaged driveshaft and refill the transmission with some top notch fluid.

Then toque all the suspension up after re-installing it and were ready to roll!

any comments on the cradle or installation process or questions are welcome!

Zimmlude

^^^ sorry but that is wrong. The black box bolted to the underside of the manifold is for the IAB (intake air bypass) butterflies in the intake manifold. If you remove it you will loose a decent amount of lowend power.

OTT

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Zimmlude &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">^^^ sorry but that is wrong. The black box bolted to the underside of the manifold is for the IAB (intake air bypass) butterflies in the intake manifold. If you remove it you will loose a decent amount of lowend power.</TD></TR></TABLE>

What is wrong? and i dont remember sayinganything about removing it!

LudeyKrus

all the pics are dead for me

OTT

ALL Pics now working! (WTDR wasnt working yesterday!)