ZX rear beam & brake pipe question

Post by **RichardW** » 27 Feb 2006, 08:00

"Not sure what he means about subframe falling in half? "

That was my post. Basically if you take both bolts right out of the front mount at the same time, the part of axle that runs front / rear will not be attached to the part that runs left / right. However the bottom bolt only holds the front mount on the inside edge, so just tap the bottom bolt back until it clears the hole in the mount, whilst removing the top entirely, and you can wiggle the mount out. Clean up the top bolt, pop the new mount in, put the top bolt back in, then take the bottom bolt out and clean that up. It's obvious when you've got it in pieces - don't try and skimp on this job though - it's one of those that's much easier if you get everything out of the way and drop the whole lot. Took me about 6 hours, but could be done in 4 if you jack it up and down less the I had to

Dave1 · Post by **Dave1** » 28 Feb 2006, 19:50

Richard,

See what you mean. Assuming the bolt goes in from the disc side and the longer bracket is on the inside, tapping it outwards just enough will leave the rest in tact $\:D/$

That is a good point to know in advance. A top tip I would say.

You are probably right about taking it all down.

Thanks for explaining it.

Dave

rossnunn · Post by **rossnunn** » 01 Mar 2006, 00:27

Is there anyway of 'inspecting' the front mounts for wear or telling if they are close to creamed without driving the car?
I considered putting new front & rear mounts on my new beam before I fitted it, but they looked ok, now I'm not really sure.
I have to drop the rear beam again, as I want to swap to stainless hoses (if Euro Car Parts ever get them back in stock

) & thought I could do it then.

8304 · Post by **8304** » 01 Mar 2006, 08:30

you dont need a slide hammer.......

i got a lenght of threaded bar and some m8 nuts, threaded the bar into the torsaion bar aned then slid about 5 very heavy plate washers dowen over the threaded bar. then put the nut on and tightened it up, tapping the torsion bar with a hammer and it then tightening the nut some more - it came out no trouble and that was off a j reg volcane where it had had loads of time to corrode / sieze.

i tried it using a slide hammer on my 94 reg zx and it destroyed the tread in the torsion bar eventually as it is such a violent operation, bashing the threads baddly

use the thread and nut method - its much more controlled and civilised!!

the threaded bar wasnt even hardened it was just mild steel, the threads stripped once so i used two nuts together and it worked fine...

one other thing - if you go down the routew of slide hammering - you dont need to find an m8 hammer as such you could find any slide hammer, thread a nut onto it the correct size, weld a biece of metal to that nut then weld a m8 nut onto the if you see what i mean.....

cheers

alastair

Dave1 · Post by **Dave1** » 01 Mar 2006, 17:46

rossnunn wrote:Is there anyway of 'inspecting' the front mounts for wear or telling if they are close to creamed without driving the car?
I considered putting new front & rear mounts on my new beam before I fitted it, but they looked ok, now I'm not really sure.
I have to drop the rear beam again, as I want to swap to stainless hoses (if Euro Car Parts ever get them back in stock ) & thought I could do it then.

The way I discovered mine is worn was by jacking up the rear and lifting / rocking the wheel by hand. I can see there is vertical movement which causes the annoying knock. They do not need to get to that stage before replacement though. They deteriorate with use so a new one will always be better in theory. Of course when you get to the knock stage you know they are worn out.

Dave1 · Post by **Dave1** » 01 Mar 2006, 17:51

8304 wrote:you dont need a slide hammer.......

i got a lenght of threaded bar and some m8 nuts, ....etc

alastair

I had thought about this but was not sure there was sufficient distance to pull the bar out by this method. I am referring to the distance between the bar and the face of the arm. It is about 7mm at a guess. Was this enough for the bar to come lose alone?

8304 · Post by **8304** » 01 Mar 2006, 18:37

by using that method mine was loose enough to pull out by hand when it got to the point where the torsion bar was flush with the arm - this happened on both sides so i would have thought it will work on yours.........

good point though i spose it could be a problem if they were really tight - i didnt think of that becuase i didnt have to as it came out by hand.........

Dave1 · Post by **Dave1** » 01 Mar 2006, 21:18

Chances are it will have been dislodged sufficiently to come out as yours did or at worst finish with a hammer and spanner pulling on the washers. Whatever, will be doing without the slide hammer. Thanks for the tip.

Dave1 · Post by **Dave1** » 11 Jun 2006, 15:30

Finally got round to doing this yesterday. First decent day I have had the time to spend on it. Jacked it up etc. and placed a ramp under the front exhaust section.

The offside was easy. However the n/s took longer because I could not get the large damper bolt out of the swing arm to remove the damper. Very tight in? Heated it and it moved a bit but even with a long bar on a socket it was very tight and would not losen with turning. In the end I took the top bolt freeing the damper that way. Then found the new front forward mount would not fit, bracket too narrow! Modified it a bit and wiggled it on. Now all back together.

Not nec. a difficult job, just rusty nuts etc that do not losen easily and drag it out.

Thanks for the tips.

Dave