hey guys i might be picking upgrading suspension soon and wanted to know if anyone was or has been successful installing the hotchkis front sway bar with out lowering the engine cradle?? i could have sworn ive read it was possible but wanted to confirm... i know hotchkis says you must and everyone whose DIY i think has lowered the craddle but srsly i could have sworn it was doable or a few ppl did it with out lowering the cradle

thanks!

 

Having changed mine out, i see no possible way to do it... its not hard just time consuming, it only took about 4 hours by my self, but well worth the time... drives like a whole new car

 

Well I didn't drop the whole cradle, I was able to snake it in by just loosening the bolts enough to get enough clearance.

 

I did quite the same, just loosened it up and snaked it thru, way less of a hassle imo

 

Yeah, put a jack under the rear section of it and follow the instructions perfectly. This will result in you being able to lower a few inches to get to the mounting brackets and have the clearance to get the new one it without any damage. This way you don't have to line up all those bolts at the same time if you dropped it all the way.... if anyone has done a clutch, they know what I mean!

 

out of the 10 clutches ive done ive never had to drop the cradle lol thats why im asking

im scooping up the rear and was possibly gona use only the rear in the med. or soft setting but since ive read a few ppl have had mixed reviews on doing that i think i might bite the bullet and loosen up all the bolts enough to lower it about an in or 2...id rather it be both up front and rear then only the rear and have it be as unresponsive as id like

 

You are referring to the sub-frame as the "cradle" right? If so, how the hell did you swap clutches without removing that?? Pull the motor?

 

very simple actually... once the axles are out and once you have the sub frame brace out and once you take out the front, rear, and tranny side motor mount all you have to do is slightly tilt the motor down a little bit with a jack holding up the motor with a 2x4 under the metal part of the block closest to the tranny. you have enough room to gently slide the tranny out of position and free it from the motor... lol

you dont have to remove all that crap or loosen it... ideally yea dropping the assembly would be easy but it also makes for a PITA to install back...

there is enough room on the edge of the block on the tranny side to support a jack even with out a 2x4 there actually... by jack i mean hydrolic jack of course that can go high enough to reach the motor.... you can also put another hydro jack under the tranny and just wiggle it free and use the jack to help take it down with an extra hand helping.

once you replace all the clutch components all you have to do is slightly tilt down the motor in place.. use the jack to jack up the tranny while someone holds it in place and wiggles it back into place... boom your done... thats how ive done every clutch on this car... take about 7-9 hours to do it.

 

"once you have the sub frame brace out" is what I was referring to. The giant black metal spiderweb that the rear motor mount/steering racks, and sway bar all attach to. I removed this all the way. We did my clutch in 4 hours this way with a lift, air tools, trans jack, and two screw jacks. I'm just confused as to what you are calling the cradle?

 

yes that is essentially called also the cradle.. i dont have access to a lift man lol i wish i did lol it would be alot easier.. but im a front yard mechanic =\ no fancy lifts.. just brute strength and patience lol

 

That's where my roots are! I just have access to a bay whenever because of the military base I live near has an auto hobby shop that costs 6 bucks an hour including all tools and machines So you just drop down the passenger side part of the cradle to squeeze the trans out? I'm just trying to think of the hell you must have gone through doing it that way. It wasn't "hard" for us to do but it sure took a lot steps to get it done. The shop helped us get it done as fast as we did though and the guy helping me has done them on jackstands many times before so he was loving the lift and all the tools

 

yea i mean it sounds like a PITA but really its easy... just takes time... but yea.. angle the motor slightly down to give u some help sliding the tranny off and thats it... anyone who tells u that you cant do it they are wrong because you can. ive never once loosend the subframe for any work... NEVER.. only to install the ES bushing kit for it. other then that its not needed...

but yea man... backyard mechanic FTW.. i wish i had access to a lift.. life would be so dam easy that way lol

 

Lifts=Win! Just grab the PDF file or if you have paper instructions from Hotchkis and follow them exactly. This should lead you to a point where the cradle isn't removed but simply loosened and lowered enough to replace the brackets and snake the new sway bar in. It honestly wasn't that bad like everyone said it was going to be. Neither was my turbo install lol.

 

well today UPDATE:

i managed to squeeze out my buddies hotchkis FSB out with out having to remove the cradle aka sub frame... all i did was loosen the subframe bolts, the rear motor mount bolts and the center brace bolts a little to be able to slide the entire assembly low enough without having to actually take any of the bolts completely out.. took a while of thinking and wiggling... but i got it out... the 12mm bolts holding the sway bar in we easy to take out... subframe dropped about 1 inch or 2 inches...loosend also the rear bolt for the control arm for extra room and boom.... slide out like butter... now time to install onto my car =( lol