Time for a photo dump. Gotten some work done over the last couple weeks, dad came out and helped me wrench on the car for Father's Day, managed to get the whole front suspension and subframe removed from the car. The engine is currently held up by a jack stand under the A/C compressor bracket, and a jack with a chunk of wood under the oil pan as an emergency backup.
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I did find the first piece of rust on the car that actually concerns me though. Pictured below, it is locate on what looks like the bumper/front clip rails on the actual frame. I might hit it with a wire wheel to see how bad it is, but I'm concerned about rust on such a potentially structural part of the car. Hopefully you all can give me some insight on it!
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On a note of the subframe/suspension, I found a steering rack out of a Z3 that has the fast steering ratio that I need, for a very reasonable price, located in Tulsa, OK at a salvage yard. They are shipping it out to me Wednesday, so I am hoping to see it early next week. I started breaking down the subframe assembly, removing the sway bar, the old steering rack, and all the little bolts and clips for dust shields. Before and after:
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The subframe mounting brackets are completely rotted away, but I should be able to source some replacements pretty readily (I hope
). One side of the subframe, where the subframe mounts too, had a pretty good amount of rust buildup. I chipped it all off, and got down to the metal, to reveal a lot of pitting. It's not TOO deep, but enough to make me worried. I'm thinking I might just go over it with some welding beads, and die-grind it flat again. Or I'll have to look and see if I have a subframe reinforcement plate that needs to weld on there anyway. Thoughts on welding over it and grinding it down?
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More tomorrow, going to finish cleaning up the subframe and start welding on the reinforcement plates.