What a wonderful surprise I have found on my 90 VDP. I drove a rental over 100 miles to to look at this car. It drove well, engine is solid and the tranny is as they say bullet proof. It had lots of minor cosmetic issues, but the interior was brilliant. Every electrical component worked! The seller said it needed a ball joint, front end drivers side. I drove the car, and surely felt and heard that ball joint issue. He wanted 1300 and I talked him down to $700 and bought the car. I drove it home and fell in love with her on the highway, nothings smoother. Yesterday I took it to get inspected and low and behold the issue wasn't a ball joint, the frame has rotted and broken off the upper control arm and someone rigged some contraption to hold it up so the wheel wouldn't fall off! After all I have gone through the last month with cars it is surprising I didn't have a fatal accident on the way home. It cant be welded back either. I found a 94 in a salvage yard and pulled the sub-frame out. Today we will replace the sub-frame! I may even give you a link to watch this job live! I really like the car, and to me its worth it.

 

mrtalkradio,

I would very much like to see the progress you make with the sub frame installation. I have a similar problem that needs to be addressed in the near future.

Good luck on the installation.

 

We are in hour number 7. The hardest thing is putting the springs back in! The 94 sub-frame fit perfect in the 90. You can see the rot on the old sub-frame pretty good now.

 

Hey there mrtalk, sorry to hear about your bad experience in buying the car, but sounds like you fell in love with it ayway and look well on the way to fixing it....Kudos to you my man
Looks like you're doing a great job so far too......why not collate all the info at the end c/w pics and do a write up / Faq / How to for future members with similar issues??
I'll be checking in to this thread to see how you get on for sure......

 

Will do. Ok so we have had a 4 hour set back. Trying to compress the massive coil spring has not been easy. So what do all those who never say die do? We make tools! As you can see, without a long explanation, your normal coil compression tools just don't work on these sub-frames. The bolts are to long and they just cant be fit it the sleeve. At the top the upper sub there is a hole with a notch, in which i believe there is a certain tool that is exclusive to jags to do this work also equaling the 2k job to do it. I got a 24 inch bolt, drilled a hole and cut another bolt and put it in the long bolt. Which now fits in the hole and I can turn it which makes it fit in the notch, put a bolt on the bottom, jack up the lower unit and crank away! Success!

 

11:34pm NY Time, Started at around 8:30a. Its perfect. Just got back from a ride on the highway. One word can describe it; silk. Hope you enjoyed the read and it helps someone out along the way.

 

Well Done, this is verily a subtle work
It will be a good reference for sure but I am thinking of title for this thread