by "Powershiftmedia-ResidentDSMGuru" (matt-powershiftmedia)
Published 11/20/2017 at 02:47
by "Powershiftmedia-ResidentDSMGuru" (matt-powershiftmedia)
Published 11/20/2017 at 02:47
Tags: DSM
; Back Yard Mechanics
STARS: 2
Casey’s 2G has went through some serious overhauling over the last month and a half or so. As previously mentioned, his 1999 Eclipse GSX has over 200k on the ticker and the original motor was burning some serious oil. We had pulled the bone stock seven bolt and transplanted a freshly rebuilt 4G63 back in place. We had also rust proofed the very solid front strut towers and went through many other rust prevention measures.
Second generation DSMs are known for underhood rust, and seeing how this car is practically rust free, we have felt very good in being proactive to ensure that this Eclipse offers years of enjoyment. However, the crossmember and core support were in terrible condition. Upon attempting to remove the cross member with an impact, we were greeted by a nasty surprise... it was toast.
The core support unfortunately isn’t something you can just unbolt. The only foreseeable solution for us was to get brave and cut the cancerous section out, do the repair and weld it back in. The issue with that is a large one; we’ve never tackled something like this before.
Getting Brave
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
Afraid of fucking up, I let Casey pave the way in this endeavor. He grabbed the cut off wheel and got right to work. Surprisingly, it took only about half an hour. However, some things did trip us up along the way.
The power steering cooler was in extremely tight proximity to the right side of the core support and took a bit of collateral damage unfortunately. Luckily, we have a spare from a parts car. Additionally, we cut a few wires in the harness. Roughly four wires took damage, and didn’t sever thankfully. So some cutting and soldering is going to need to be done there.
Regardless, this is something that we’ve never done, and you cannot learn if you don’t get in there and do it. So that’s quite a small price to pay, and he’s very proud of the job well done. He has some friends at work eager to rebuild these troubled components, and upon them being completed, we will weld them back in place, repair the wiring harness and plug in all the connections on the motor.
After that, we need to fill the transmission and engine with oil, I need to extract a bolt from the transmission pan to ensure a tight and leak free seal, pop the axles and transfer case back in place, and he will get to enjoy a first drive after all of the hard work we’ve done over the span of just a few weekends.
