HectorM52

Hey guys, my wife's '99 Accord died last year. I'll give you one guess as to what it was that died...the auto tranny. After searching this and other forums and learning that I would just be delaying the car's death for a few more miles if we picked up a rebuilt tranny, we decided to purchase a new car (got an '07 Accord MANUAL). Of course the dealers wanted to give us NOTHING for a nice car so I decided to park it and do this swap. Twenty months later, I just picked up the donor car. It's another '99 LX sedan. Picked it up for $1500 and drove it home. Has some front end damage, but luckily ran home without issue.

My plan is to work on this an hour or two per night between taking care of the kids and working. Hopefully we're talking about a month or so before I'm back up and running. Any of you near north-Atlanta feel free to come up and help. I'll pick up the beers and pizza.


Started working on the donor car tonight...yanked the front end apart. Had to pull the front bumper cover as it was falling off. Pulled the junk headlights. Small pile of trash I'm compiling here. Also pulled the A/C lines, condensor, radiator & fans. Started pulling all wiring harnesses, though I have this sneaking suspicion that there's no need to pull the lighting harness. Guess I'll find that out once I pull the motor/tranny.

Honestly I was expecting a lot more work here. It's going well so far and I'm happy I went this direction and didn't decide to rebuild that POS auto tranny.


Anyone done this and have any suggestions/warnings/good information? I'm uploading a bunch of pics and will post them tomorrow. I just scanned through the Civic swap sticky and seems like I'm on the right track. I'll do some more searching tomorrow, but it's late now and I gotta work at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow!

Oh, and any stuff not used on the donor car will be for sale if anyone is interested in anything. Just PM me.

HectorM52

My working space - or should I say "space?" More like my working "cell." It's small like jail.



Few "BEFORE" pics (for my reference later):

HectorM52

Last night I started yanking stuff off the front end. I know I didn't have to pull some of this stuff, but I wanted to salvage what I could and also learn which wiring harnesses could stay in the recipient car during the swap. The front end was beat up pretty good, but believe it or not, a few spot welds drilled out and this thing could be put back together into a decent car. Oh well, I'm no body man, so forget it.

Hoping to have it ready to pull after one more night of work.

HectorM52

Tonight I got out there and yanked the harness off of it and also pulled the accessories so it's just about ready to pull out. It's just that I didn't have the socket to break apart the axles from the spindles so I gave up for the night.

Tomorrow I'll yank the rest of the heater hoses and pick up that socket. I'm not looking forward to pulling the dash and wiring harness.

ef9_lover

iTrader: (1)

while everything is apart i would recommend swaping the under dash harness from the manual to auto shell. if you dont your gonna have to trick the key cylinder to think its in parking to give u the key back.

HectorM52

That's my plan. I am scared of what's to come...because I know pulling the dash is a pain...but I think in the end there will be less chance of issues in the long run. I plan to drive this thing till the wheels fall off. Thanks for the advice...that's the kind of thing I need to know about and think about!!!

HectorM52

Not much progress tonight. I got my 36 mm socket for the axle nuts and popped those loose. Pulled a couple more items off the engine to get it ready to pull. Hooked up the lift. Pulled a couple of the motor mounts.

But I can't get the damn ball joints to pop away from the lower control arms. I even got a big steel rod between the LCA and spindle and couldn't get it to pop loose. I bent that damn rod. So I couldn't pull the axles and I gave up on getting to the rear mount.


Anyone have any suggestions on popping those ball joints loose?

kyden

go to harbor freight and get the ball joint tool (not the pickle fork one)

kozanatos

Regular craftsman wrench

Jack assembly up ( I use the scissor jack from honda)
set the wrench in there, lower the jack
Kick downward on the wheel studs or whatever
pop.
Don't do it right away if you have to remove the whole assembly to replace a wheel bearing, do it last.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISY8bGof3bQ

HectorM52

I found that YouTube vid right after I posted about that. Thanks guys. I plan on trying that tonight.

HectorM52

Just for my future reference:

https://honda-tech.com/forums/honda-accord-1990-2002-2/offical-6th-gen-auto-5spd-swap-guide-use-your-owen-risk-%2A%2Asticky%2A%2A-1229014/

HectorM52

Okay, question for you guys. How the hell do you get the driver's side axle apart?

And how the hell do you get the axles out of the spindle knuckles?


THANKS IN ADVANCE!!

HectorM52

PROGRESS TONIGHT!

Got those ball joints popped loose (thank you guys for the advice, that video worked like a freakin' charm!! Unbolted the radius rods. Pulled the axles. Finally unbolted the cradle. Dropped it all down a bit. Pulled the passenger side frame mount. Pulled the bolt from the rear mount. And it was loose!!

Check it out:

HectorM52

Well I bolted the cradle back in then bolted the suspension back up just enough to push the car out of the garage into the driveway. Then moved the other car around in the garage so I could work on it. Will probably start pulling it apart tomorrow.

Question: How the hell do you get the axles out of the car? They don't fit through the spindle/knuckle!!!

hondamark35

you must undo the axle nut and pull them out of the back.. inboard side of the hub/knuckle. you'll need to unbolt the shock fork from the lower control arm to get the axle out.

HectorM52

Thanks. I think I read that somewhere else as well and was going to try that next time I had a chance to get out there.

kozanatos

Okay, I regret to inform you that you may have a crappy situation on hand.
Your axles are in the hubs and when you spin to loosen the axle nuts the wheel /hub will spin.

center caps on your wheel hopefully pop out( or you have hubcaps )

maybe somebody has a trick if you have it off the ground.

IF you had tires on the thing and could lower it > You will need a breaker bar or impact wrench, DO NOT just grab a wrench, even a big one with a small breaker extension and try and have a go at it, you may possibly smash your pinky finger because you land on it with the wrench in your hand and then you have a black nail for the next two months until it grows back.

You will need something like 3ft of square tubing, and the 32?mm 1 1/4in socket?

Somebody got a trick? help him

hondamark35

a screwdriver or other make-shift metal rod in the vents of the rotor then rested against the brake caliper will lock the hub to the suspension.

i still prefer a wheel on the ground with the center cap removed and a friend holding the brake pedal down. but when you don't have that option, the above will work.

HectorM52

Oh, I did pop those nuts loose back when the motor was still in. The axles are just laying there as of now.

Essentially my problem was that I've read 3 or 4 "How-To-Swap" threads and they're usually for a Civic or older Accord. They always just say "swing the spindle out of the way then pull the axle out." Obviously ours needs another step as you described above with popping out the bolt of that shock fork. I just was hoping there was an easy way that I wasn't seeing. Apparently not.

Kevs02Accord

Undoing the bolt on the shock fork is really easy. I had to replace the axels on a 98 acura cl and you just have to wiggle it through the space. Correct me someone if I am wrong but I think it would be even easier if you took the whole knuckle off, then you could just pull the axel straight through. Or are you having a different problem other than that?

HectorM52

No, that was my issue. It was just a matter of me not knowing if the axle would come out without pulling the fork apart. I was hoping to be lazy and get by with just slipping them out through the fork. It didn't work out quite that easy.


...

Still no progress. I'm busy.

Kevs02Accord

Haha, it never is that easy. Keep us updated. Are you swapping the whole power train with the manual transmission into the auto accord, or just the transmission?

kozanatos

Oah yeah, its easy, undo the fork good thinking on loosening the nuts!

HectorM52

Well I was contemplating doing the motor and transmission, but after I started it up "cold" it ran like sheeot so I decided maybe I'll just keep it for spare parts or maybe just sell it at some point in the future.

So the plan has changed to use my motor and swap over the new tranny.

Anything I need to look out for? I'm thinking that the pilot bearing is just about the only thing that I'll need to keep after.

Kevs02Accord

Haha, a spare would be nice, although from the pics where would you put it?

Can't really help you with that part of the swap, hopefully someone else will chime in on that.