Took as long as he said it would.

[supraguy@aol]

I got my BIC nylon bushings in the mail from Randy last week, and I finally got the courage to drop my rear subframe. I was afraid it would be an all-day thing, and I'd have to unbolt and remove everything to get it done. But no. It was quite straight forward.

All I did was:
1. Loosen my downpipe to give my exhaust a bit of flexibility.
2. Jacked up the rear, chocked the front, and removed both rear wheels.
3. Unbolted the rear calipers and sat them on some 10" supports(tupperware)
4. Pulled the exhaust off its three rubber support hangers.
5. Unbolted the bottom shock bolt and removed.
6. Unbolted one side of the rear driveshaft safety bar and let it hang down.
7. Unbolted the front L and R coverplates(4-14mm bolts total)
8. Unbolted the L and R front subframe bolts(2 bolts, 2 nuts, all 19mm)
9. Pushed my tranny jack under the differential and jacked up to support it.
10. Unbolted the two rear subframe bolts(also 19mm)
11. Lowered the subframe on the tranny jack just enough to get all 6 old rubber spacers out, and installed the 6 new ones, with the 2 metal washers on the two rear mounts.
12. Reverse all steps to reinstall.

Randy said in his original post that it would take a few hours to do, and it did- 2.5 to be exact. I did stop a few times to get a drink though.

Front mounts:

Rear mount:

Old spacers:

Have yet to drive it, so I don't know how much road noise i'll be getting, but at least the rear won't be loose anymore.

Thanks, Randy.

 

[supraguy@aol]

Drove it and the road noise isn't bad at all. To be accurate, I don't hear 'road noise', I mean to say I hear a bit of differential noise.
All it really is, is a growl from the diff when I put load on the engine, but it's very subtle. Can't hear any additional noise at all at cruise.
In fact, it's kind of a cool noise- sounds almost like the car is mid-engine for some reason. I like it,