trailing arm gurus, please help out here.

[joecutlass]

So i picked up a 1991 gtp. Body and interior in mint condition. P.O claimed the motor wouldnt turn over. Tonight, i pulled the serpentine belt off, and low and behold, the a/c compressor is seized up. Put a few gallons of new gas in it and a small shot of ether, and the LQ1 started. Now, aside of the car needing a new fuel tank, brakes lines replaced, tie rod ends, and more. (The car sat for three years in a feild). Im sure you know where this is going. The trailing arm mounts are shot. Both sides. Also, the steel under the bumper doesnt look very healthy either. Now, im asking for some feedback as to what are the details of doing this repair for the trailing arm mounts. The car has 124k on it. Im sure pictures are going to be asked for, but i wont be able to get picture up until the weekend. I would rather use a good camera, rather than my scratched evo 4g camera. So help me out here and help save a W.

[RobertISaar]

expect to weld, assuming there is any decent metal underneath to even attach to. the MC has had this done.... 3 times i think? my rear alignment is shot to hell though, since no measurements were done when it was put back together.

[bkaab]

My 96 has had the driver side welded up. As long as there is good metal left ya should be able to reweld it.

[Crazy K]

Hard and possibly costly, but not impossible to do... pics of damage? remember that new trailing arms are availible from Rockauto at great prices.

 

 

oh, and does the GP have a powermaster?

Edited June 6, 2012 by Crazy K

[joecutlass]

Yes. The gtp has powermaster III

[GOT2B GM]

Someone called me??

 

As long as the floors and quarters are decent ( so you have something to weld to) it is a very plausable job.

 

Take your time fitting the donor pieces ( If you can find a clean donor W it makes life much easier)

 

The tighter the gaps, the nicer the finished product turns out (especially welding on such thin material)

 

To do the job, you'll need to remove the gas tank, rear seats, rear carpeting, body cladding on the quarters, e brake cables, trailing arms and the exhaust.

[joecutlass]

This weekend i will take the body cladding off. Hoping the weather is decent. Weve had a few days of off and on rain. I have a thought in mind, about how to, ij a different fashion. I shall return by saturday afternoon, EST.

[Breakdown]

So i picked up a 1991 gtp. Body and interior in mint condition. P.O claimed the motor wouldnt turn over. Tonight, i pulled the serpentine belt off, and low and behold, the a/c compressor is seized up. Put a few gallons of new gas in it and a small shot of ether, and the LQ1 started. Now, aside of the car needing a new fuel tank, brakes lines replaced, tie rod ends, and more. (The car sat for three years in a feild). Im sure you know where this is going. The trailing arm mounts are shot. Both sides. Also, the steel under the bumper doesnt look very healthy either. Now, im asking for some feedback as to what are the details of doing this repair for the trailing arm mounts. The car has 124k on it. Im sure pictures are going to be asked for, but i wont be able to get picture up until the weekend. I would rather use a good camera, rather than my scratched evo 4g camera. So help me out here and help save a W.

 

Far be it for me to say, but when we did the trailing arms on my car, we had just swapped in a powertrain with under 75K miles on it, brakes were still really good and suspension too.

 

This sounds like more of a mess (though it is a very good-looking car), but I would plan for more going wrong than what you already know about. Meaning cooling system problems, head gaskets, seized struts, etc.

 

I'm 99% sure you're the one that I pointed the thread to on facebook. In the end, the repairs that I had help with from CSI_Munky and Got2BGM were worth it. Since their repairs I've clocked another 33,000km on the car (Sept 2011 - repair date). For me it was worth it, if you're going by the textbook it probably was a pretty stupid idea to be entirely honest. I was privy to a couple of advantages that you may not have access to. One, I had access to some tremendous, industrious friends. Two, access to a welder. Three access to other demo tools - through those friends. And four, this Nunzi guy, was actually fool-hearty enough to sawzall off massive portions of his own car (which was pretty much rust free in that area, thus giving us access to the metal already pre-formed that that area of the car.

 

My car is a bunch of headaches but . . . I love it, what I can say.

 

http://www.w-body.com/showthread.php/50987-Amy-needs-help!!-Ideas

 

Idea about the general condition of the underbody to start with:

 

http://www.w-body.com/showthread.php/50461-Breakdown-s-1996-Grand-Prix-SE/page6

[joecutlass]

So, the gtp was looked at by three fabricators. Two, in which i know very well. The one guy, who i dont inow who he is, quoted ke a very high price. The second guy, who is a close high school friend of mine, said it wasnt something he wanted to get himself into. Completely understandable. The third guy, "You have plenty of meat there. We can fix this no problem. Bring food, crappy clothes, and "less than $400", we'll be done in two fridays." But first, i need to replace the ac compressor with a delete pulley i have, put a tank in it with fresh fuel, patch the brake lines, and drive it around the block to make sure i have no engine trans issues.

[joecutlass]

So ive made quite a bit of progress. Bypass pulley was installed. Radiator fans reinstalled. Got the gtp running and it had an egr valve leak and maf sensor vacuum leak. Got those straightened out, put the rear end up on ramps, poured 3 gallons of gas in and a short burst of ether, and the car was running. Starts on its own fuel now. Brake lines are next. Fuel tank and filler neck are to follow. Which means, i need to post a wtb in the classifieds.