It has been a long time coming but as of the 4th I got laid off. So what better time than now to do the awd swap? I am still waiting on the tank and driveline to arrive but I got started with the front to tackle the motor mount situation.
Here is the car I will be swapping. It has been front wheel drive for 200100k miles and will soon be spinning all 4 tires.
Got it in the garage and pretty high up on 4 jack stands. Jerked the wheels and started in on the front end, getting the trans out mainly.
Got the trans out in record time.
Now the beautiful $400 exhaust.
I didnt like the side to side front motor mount Idea so I wanted to go with a crossmember. I read people asking if the Expo awd crossmember would possibly work and while it is some what similar to the jdm crossmember it is not the same and will still require some fab. So here is what I did to get it to work.
Factory Colt crossmember next to the expo crossmember. You can see the curve in it where it goes around the t case. On the expo the rear mount is on the transmission rather than motor like the jdm awd cars. You can also see that the front of the crossmember has a different mounting set up than the stock crossmember. So this will have to be changed.
Bolts right to where the jdm crossmember would and fits right in the groove in the bottom of the 1g trans, almost like it was made to be this way. haha not.
I cut off the front portion of the crossmember so that I could tack the csm front portion on to see if it will work. Also tacked on the front mount, it is in a different spot than the expo had it mounted.
Here is what I have to work with as far as room in the back and next to the t case. Got a little discouraged when I got to this point, you can see why.
Here I decided to just flip the rear motor mount over. I also took the rear mount the expo crossmember had on it cut the little bolt on flange part off and bolted it back onto the crossmember. Now all I have to do is use some tubing to reconnect the flange with the actual rubber mount.
More updates to come really soon
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89 Original Turbo Colt Gt AWD PTE 6262 Built 9:1, TRE stage 2. 10.93@129
05 Evolution VIII FP Green, garage queen.
97 Eclipse Gsx 80k miles, 6 Bolt, HX-35
08 Ford F-350 6.4 PSD 3 mods and 600hp