Can I remove Crossmember without causing alignment issues?

[daryl]

Can I remove front Crossmember without causing alignment issues?

I know on some cars you need alignment pins for when you bolt it back up.

Don't want to mess anything up.


Also can I remove all the rear crossmember and suspension components without causing any problems?

[Daninski]

Front cross member can be removed no problem. I bought a car that didn't have the crossmember on it. Some idiot forgot to reinstall it. lol

[daryl]

But the suspension wishbones bolt on to it?
So does the anti roll bar?

[Daninski]

Lower control arms and anti sway bar are not connected to the engine in any way.

[daryl]

were talking about different parts here....

Your talking about the one that runs from front to back, with the two engine mounts on it.
(when you said that you bought a car without one on it)

I'm talking about the one that runs across the car, the one that the anti roll bar fastens to in the middle. It runs across underneath the steering rack, its huge.

[Daninski]

I wasn't talking about the brace that runs from front to back, I was talking about the lower control arms your wheels attach to. The large brace under the engine that goes from one side to the other and is held in place by 4 bolts with an alignment pin on side can be removed no problem in fact if you change your exhaust you usually have to remove this support to do the job. Does this make sense.

[daryl]

Just to clear things up, I have circled what I want to remove below:

[Daninski]

Holy sh*t Batman, don't do it. Do the swap outside if you need the clearance. You can move the car around with a car jack using the front jack point. I moved one outside on a dirt drive way. I had to put down plywood so the wheels wouldn't sink into the ground but I did it. Car won't slip off the jack so don't worry about that.

[_-Night-Shade-_]

Actually I think you should be okay, there's nothing there that can affect the alignment. Just make sure you don't touch the strut assembly, hub/knuckle, and the rie rods. You'll have to unbolt the lower ball joint from the control arm but that will bolt back in to the exact same spot afterwards without affecting alignment.

[Daninski]

Oh man such an easy swap looks like it's suddenly getting ugly. Like I said just drop the car. If your down for some work why not do the Protege steering mod while your at it and eliminate the need for a power steering pump.

[wytbishop]

Um... the steering rack is bolted to it. Can't affect alignment much more than that.

[daryl]

This has nothing to do with the engine coming out, i'm sending all the suspension bits off to get powder coated and I wanted to send this aswell.

Its already got a KLZE in there anyway, but I'm removing that so that I can re-paint some bits on it to match the new colour i'm spraying the car and so I can spray inside the engine bay.

Also I don't mean wheel alignment issues, I mean chassis alignment issues and there is a big difference. I've been a mechanic for about 5 years now and on some cars if you remove the subframe or significant crossmember like I want to, you need special alignment tools to put it back together.

If you get it wrong on cars that need alignment pins the car will crab sideways (been there and done that, then had to buy a £90 pair of pins and do it right). It can be less than 1mm off and still do it.

But the chiltons manual does not seem to mention the crossmember at all? I suppose its a Subframe really.

[wytbishop]

It is perfectly reasonable and not all that uncommon to completely disassemble the front end o the vehicle for exactly that purpose. You do not have to worry about frame alignment issues if you remov the subframe.

[Ryan]

I'd say unibodies don't have trouble with it. Not unless you drop it off the hoist