One day AWD conversion finished! (lots of pics)

[shooter83]

it is clear that many have benefited from my info on the AWD conversion process, yet nobody has been kind enough to give credit where it's due..

with that said:

If any of my AWD conversion threads have helped you on your journey to converting your FWD car to accept the AWD rear subframe. then please give credit where it is due, and share the info that helped you become AWD, by adding a simple link to this thread, in your thread. if not, i will forever frown upon you...


and another FWD car that has graduated into manhood! this time i did "the one day" bare minimum AWD conversion, the complete opposite of the conversion i did to my car. the car this conversion is being done on, is Digiimandan3kgt's 1995 3000GT base. i had a very limited time frame on when this could be completed, so i wanted to make this as easy as possible. thanks to Chask for some ideas/lending of tools. and Bob The Great for the strut fix & DS fix.



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THIS SPACE WILL BE FOR EPIC FUTURE 15T AWD LAUNCH VIDEO


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you have four things you have to deal with when installing the Z16A AWD rear sub-frame to the Z11A FWD chassis. read up on my thread for more detail: Shooter83's 100% Complete AWD Conversion (pic heavy) - 3000GT/Stealth International Message Center

1. in the rear, the FWD cars have a trailing arm mount. and AWD cars have a sub-frame mounting base.

2. the FWD rearward sub frame studs protruding from the frame are too small in diameter, and too short to pass through the AWD rear sub-frame.

3. the FWD cars only have two of the four mounting studs for the drive-shaft.

4. because of the differences in height, location, and angle of the rear strut towers between AWD and FWD cars. a rubber bushing needs to be added to the rear struts, to help give more of an angle like the AWD strut tower would.

[shooter83]

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a disclaimer before we get started:

AWD cars will become very scarce in the future! SO DO NOT destroy a good factory AWD Z16/5A chassis by extracting the parts listed in this wright up. the only cars you should be extracting these parts from, are cars that have been damaged from an accident, rusted beyond repair, or are at the junkyard and are not purchasable. if you get a hold of an AWD chassis in good shape, then swap your car over to it. IMO, there is NOTHING like a FACTORY AWD chassis. our cars are parted everyday, it's not hard to get a hold of one in the $0 to $500 dollar range. some are almost complete, and some are stripped.

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i'll start off by showing you how to extract the parts you need from the AWD doner car. you need the AWD sub-frame forward mounting plates, and the larger AWD rear sub-frame studs. thats it.

since you probably won't have access to electricity at a junk yard. the best way to remove the AWD forward mounts is to use a cordless sawzall with a few extra fully charged battery's ready to go. to remove the AWD rear studs, and the cutout shown below. go slow, and periodically stop to check your direction from the underside, to ensure that your are not going to cut into the mount. you will be cutting through the frame, so there will be some tuff moments. the frame will also try to bind and pinch the blade to a halt from time to time. so if that happens try starting another cut from another angle or direction. after the cutout is removed, the car will be very flimsy, so be careful not to be under the car during the final cuts.

to remove the AWD studs, use the sawzall and cut them flush at the frame .

[shooter83]

after you've removed the cutout from the car, you will need to remove all of the spot welds holding the mount to the cutout. the nice thing is that you can drill all the spot welds of the mount out side the car, with it upside down. this way you don't get hot metal shavings sprinkling down on your face, arms and hands. you will also have to use a hand held grinder with a cutoff wheel installed and cut a line to get the mount out.

buy a Blair double sided spot weld cutter to make life easier. also pick up a 3 pack of replacement cutters. i've gotten the cutters to last for about 100 spot welds before they dull. but when your first getting used to the bit, you'll break a few before you get the hang of it. some people like to drill pilot holes in the center of the spot weld for the cutters arbor to go in to. but i prefer to get a good hit in the center of the spot weld with a punch and hammer, then keep a steady hand and pressure to keep the cutters spring-loaded arbor in place. this saves a great deal of time. each mount took about 30 mins to remove from the cutout.

you can find these cutters at local specialty automotive paint & body supply stores, the kind of place that sells to businesses and local body shops. look at the bottom of the page: Blair Spotweld Cutters





cut and bend a flap like this, you have 2 more spot welds under here

[shooter83]

next we will be taking care of the FWD rearward sub frame studs protruding from the frame that are too small in diameter, and too short to pass through the AWD rear sub-frame. while brainstorming one night with Chask on how to overcome this issue, he mentioned a very simple answer! just cut the AWD stud off flush at the frame, then drill and tap it to the 12x125 metric thread, so it can screw over the existing FWD stud! simple! i sent the studs to the machine shop, an hour and $30 bucks later these were the end result:




now we're ready to start the conversion!

[shooter83]

8am on January 28th, D-day.

first, some shots of the underside while Digi's car is still FWD:










after we dropped out the Diamante rear end that should have never been in any of our cars in the first place, we decided to start by installing the larger AWD studs over the FWD ones. i wanted the AWD stud to thread all the way up the FWD stud to the frame, so i picked up a 12x125 metric die to make new thread all the way up FWD stud. then i cut some of the FWD stud off, so the AWD stud could go all the way up.




pedomandan watches me screw

[shooter83]

alright the real point of no return. the removal of the trailing arm mount from the FWD frame rail. i used a combination of cutoff wheels, grinding wheels, sawzall, and spot-weld cutter where i could. i notched out a section from the frame rail for the AWD forward sub-frame mount to sit in.

[shooter83]

weld in the mounts and HEAVILY undercoat them a few times, with about 10mins between sprays. i forgot to snap a pic of my welds, thats too bad because i was rather proud of them. compared to the sloppy welds on my own conversion.

the last thing we have to do, is go in and spray "Great Stuff" expanding foam behind the mounts to prevent rust from forming where there might be bare unprotected metal from welding.








i then cut off the extra unused FWD rear end studs that only get in the way. i tack welded the left over stumps to keep them from rattling inside the frame, and gave them a heavy coat of undercoat. rust prevention is a must!

[shooter83]

While the undercoat was curing i decided to tackle the froward drive-shaft mount, that is missing studs. jump over to my thread, and see the difference: http://www.3si.org/forum/4947039-post9.html. as you can see the brace it self is the same, it's just that the FWD brace has a threaded hole and a blank hole. what i did was cut an access hole in the blank side and dropped in a 14mm bolt, i welded that in place, and then closed up the access hole. on the threaded hole, i took another one of the same sized 14mm bolts, and used that to secure the drive-shaft.

[shooter83]

ok! now we're at the end of the project time to install the rear end!


the first pic shows the bushing we found at Advance Auto. Bob the Great and Barefoot used these for their conversions. but it's not the exact one, these ones are MUCH MUCH harder so we had to trim them down to be able to get a nut on the strut tower. the set that Bob the Great used were "HELP! Shock Absorber Bushings p/n 31012", but we could not find those locally. you can also see the Drweldin AWS delete in place.

[shooter83]

12 hours from the start of this project, we're done and can you believe he's still FWD yep, his output shaft was removed for the FWD converted AWD 5 speed another day, another day...