Thanks,
doesn't look too bad from here....though you really need to get the grinder on to it to see whats stuffed inside. So the 3" lift has 3 separate blocks there?
hmmm
Busted L series wagon - Lift block related
-
Outback bloke
- Senior Member
- Posts: 2103
- Joined: Fri Sep 30, 2005 10:00 am
- Location: Morayfield - Queensland
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There is nothing wrong with the lift having seperate blocks. What usually causes it is loose bolts, rust, or big impacts to the radius rod. Some people don't go around and re-tighten all the lift bolts a week or so after the kit has been installed.
I don't know exactly why they have pulled out here as I don't know the car or its' history but looking at the pics it looks like it could have been rust related.
I don't know exactly why they have pulled out here as I don't know the car or its' history but looking at the pics it looks like it could have been rust related.
BYB-01
Mine is broken perhaps due to a little rust but mostly from many impacts over time. Area has been weakened and even cracked though the pics don't really display the cracks at all. Then I had an impact not too big but enough to do the damage shown. So I guess we could call it fatigue....
Anyway, I'll be taking your advice and cutting up my floor, prob not for a few weeks though have a lot on my plate w work and the kids atm. Will post as I proceed to let you all know how I'm doing and to ask more questions too I'm sure
Thanks guys!
Smokey.
Mine is broken perhaps due to a little rust but mostly from many impacts over time. Area has been weakened and even cracked though the pics don't really display the cracks at all. Then I had an impact not too big but enough to do the damage shown. So I guess we could call it fatigue....
Anyway, I'll be taking your advice and cutting up my floor, prob not for a few weeks though have a lot on my plate w work and the kids atm. Will post as I proceed to let you all know how I'm doing and to ask more questions too I'm sure
Thanks guys!
Smokey.
Ok so I'm taking the car in to a mates workshop this Sat morning. Got all the gear there so will just rip into it. Pulled up the carpet inside tonight and the floor is buckled inside, under the firewall just as the floor slopes up at the back (frontmost) of the dash. Not alot of roome to work even without the passenger seat in.
How do I remove the whole dash or is it possible to remove just the glove area to allow better access. I'm not too woried about taking out the whole thing though as I have a new heater core to go in too, might as well make it easier to do both jobs.
Is it still drivable w the dash out? Will the speedo cable dssconnect properly? ie allow me to totaly remove the dash and leave it in the garage at home?
Finally there is allready one steel plate on the inside under the carpet, its on the rear most lift block, the one closest to the side of the car, & front passenger door.
Smokey
How do I remove the whole dash or is it possible to remove just the glove area to allow better access. I'm not too woried about taking out the whole thing though as I have a new heater core to go in too, might as well make it easier to do both jobs.
Is it still drivable w the dash out? Will the speedo cable dssconnect properly? ie allow me to totaly remove the dash and leave it in the garage at home?
Finally there is allready one steel plate on the inside under the carpet, its on the rear most lift block, the one closest to the side of the car, & front passenger door.
Smokey
yeah you can drive it with the dash out, mount the speedo and switches to a thick cardboard and tie it down 
done that too b4.........
gives you heaps more space to work around in, check inside under the windscreen for rust and fix that too while your there....
hope it goes well for you, we gotta do some more trips
done that too b4.........gives you heaps more space to work around in, check inside under the windscreen for rust and fix that too while your there....
hope it goes well for you, we gotta do some more trips
Thanks Fred, i'll look at the book tonight and rip the dash out on Sunday. Fixing the floor & underbody has been postponed till monday night. Neighbour who is heling me, actually doing the welding, so I'll be helping him actually had a look at the floor on the inside and seemed to think it would be easy so hopefully it will all go ok. Rego is sorted pay that on monday so it'll be good again for a few more trips....hahaha
As soon as its fixed and I have a free WE i'll plan something, maybe down your way this time Fred. I know Sideways Subaru wants to get out too.
Cheers,
Smokey
As soon as its fixed and I have a free WE i'll plan something, maybe down your way this time Fred. I know Sideways Subaru wants to get out too.
Cheers,
Smokey
Its still going.... Car not quite on the road yet.
Ran up against a few issues due to not knowing what I was doing, but had a few mates come over several times to lend a hand and now I hope its all good to go.
I cut out the hole from the "riped out" nut, and welded the nut to the back of some 2mm black steel and welded that back up to the body, this came off twice, but I think that was due to not enough heat on the welder...I did some welding later and the nut stayed on. However the plate then broke off....Was annoying me too much so I welded a plate onto the hole from the outside and cleaned it up w the grinder & tried to keep the hole in the right place. Near impossible! Welded another nut to another plate, cut several plates and stacked them together and cut through the side (inside the wheel arch) and used a pressure fit to hold it all together. Downside to this is if I ever have to remove that bolt, I'll never get the nut back on and will have to cut again.....
The other bits like straightening up the floor and welding the holes and seams went well. Ended up re-doing all three mounting points where the lift blocks sit. The one where the cross-member bolts into should be the strongest, as we took that plate off and straightened it up and re welded it all the way round
It was originally only tack/spot welded in place. The third one that's closest to the rear and outside of the car: floor was cracked and rusting but was the only one still holding on. As the floor here was slightly bent and pushed in, I welded a plate (2mm black steel) over the damaged area, and cleaned it up w the grinder. Lift block now sits nice. This bolt goes right through the car though, previous owner(s) fix up job??. So this one remains the same just strengthened the under body where the lift block sits.
Its not all aligned up too well as the cross member touches the plate that the radius rod connects to, but not too bad me thinks, will find out how bad when i visit the wheel aligner. Might have to make an adjustable radius rod too to compensate for the incorrect position if its out by much.
Dash....what a pain in the ass! Decided to take the dash out completely to allow more room to straighten the floor and weld/seal it. Also had no heather so decided to redo the core while I was at it. That part was fine once the dash was out as I had some trouble getting it out via torchlight. Oh and I now need a new windscreen as the 240V light I had sitting on the windscreen must have got too hot, all cracked. But its got another 10 months of rego so no great hurry.
Anyway so heather core replaced, I replaced all the rubber/foam on all the flaps to help get it all to sealed properly. Got some hoses and reconnected them to the engine. Have not started it yet, keep reading....
I decided to do the dash and heather etc as I was working at night in the dark and its been cold in penrith. So left the bolting of all the lift stuff to last. Last night put it all back together.....and (excited!!!!)
Turned the key after re-attaching the battery, nothing.... "Oh that's right its immobilized", pressed the button.....nothing
So now have to remove a few under dash panels to find out why I have no power going to the immobilizer. BUGGER, and annoying and a little frustrated.
So its soooooo almost going again. But not quite. Has been a really huge job for me and I've learnt heaps and am enjoying it but I want to drive it.....
So things that could still go wrong...
1) Take it out onto the road and come back to find one of the welds was not good enough and broke (worst fear)
2) Wheel alignment is not possible due to moved position of the holes for the lifts etc.
3) Heather related issue, flooding my car
4) There is no 4, but there must be room for the unexpected.
I think that's about it.
Smokey.
Ran up against a few issues due to not knowing what I was doing, but had a few mates come over several times to lend a hand and now I hope its all good to go.
I cut out the hole from the "riped out" nut, and welded the nut to the back of some 2mm black steel and welded that back up to the body, this came off twice, but I think that was due to not enough heat on the welder...I did some welding later and the nut stayed on. However the plate then broke off....Was annoying me too much so I welded a plate onto the hole from the outside and cleaned it up w the grinder & tried to keep the hole in the right place. Near impossible! Welded another nut to another plate, cut several plates and stacked them together and cut through the side (inside the wheel arch) and used a pressure fit to hold it all together. Downside to this is if I ever have to remove that bolt, I'll never get the nut back on and will have to cut again.....
The other bits like straightening up the floor and welding the holes and seams went well. Ended up re-doing all three mounting points where the lift blocks sit. The one where the cross-member bolts into should be the strongest, as we took that plate off and straightened it up and re welded it all the way round
It was originally only tack/spot welded in place. The third one that's closest to the rear and outside of the car: floor was cracked and rusting but was the only one still holding on. As the floor here was slightly bent and pushed in, I welded a plate (2mm black steel) over the damaged area, and cleaned it up w the grinder. Lift block now sits nice. This bolt goes right through the car though, previous owner(s) fix up job??. So this one remains the same just strengthened the under body where the lift block sits.
Its not all aligned up too well as the cross member touches the plate that the radius rod connects to, but not too bad me thinks, will find out how bad when i visit the wheel aligner. Might have to make an adjustable radius rod too to compensate for the incorrect position if its out by much.
Dash....what a pain in the ass! Decided to take the dash out completely to allow more room to straighten the floor and weld/seal it. Also had no heather so decided to redo the core while I was at it. That part was fine once the dash was out as I had some trouble getting it out via torchlight. Oh and I now need a new windscreen as the 240V light I had sitting on the windscreen must have got too hot, all cracked. But its got another 10 months of rego so no great hurry.
Anyway so heather core replaced, I replaced all the rubber/foam on all the flaps to help get it all to sealed properly. Got some hoses and reconnected them to the engine. Have not started it yet, keep reading....
I decided to do the dash and heather etc as I was working at night in the dark and its been cold in penrith. So left the bolting of all the lift stuff to last. Last night put it all back together.....and (excited!!!!)
Turned the key after re-attaching the battery, nothing.... "Oh that's right its immobilized", pressed the button.....nothing
So now have to remove a few under dash panels to find out why I have no power going to the immobilizer. BUGGER, and annoying and a little frustrated.
So its soooooo almost going again. But not quite. Has been a really huge job for me and I've learnt heaps and am enjoying it but I want to drive it.....
So things that could still go wrong...
1) Take it out onto the road and come back to find one of the welds was not good enough and broke (worst fear)
2) Wheel alignment is not possible due to moved position of the holes for the lifts etc.
3) Heather related issue, flooding my car
4) There is no 4, but there must be room for the unexpected.
I think that's about it.
Smokey.
Floor cut open?
Fatz - What part of the floor are you think of, where is your problem? With my above fix it job, I never cut the floor open, but had a bolt run straight through the floor into the car and then a 5mm plate on the inside the a washer and nut.
The other two bots in this immediate area, do not and cannot come through into the car, due the angels etc, kinda hard to explain.
Let me know where u need to get etc and we'll all see what we can come up with. I have another block that needs fixing in the rear so will be adding a new post soon. I'll also add some pics in my above post as indicated.
Smokey
The other two bots in this immediate area, do not and cannot come through into the car, due the angels etc, kinda hard to explain.
Let me know where u need to get etc and we'll all see what we can come up with. I have another block that needs fixing in the rear so will be adding a new post soon. I'll also add some pics in my above post as indicated.
Smokey
Mr Fatz,
Welds are a patch job, mostly from the outside, the black stuff is melted tar that came through. The front left wheel had taken a hard hit, and riped out all but the rear outside block buckling the floor. Was pushed in a few cm's. So bashed it out with a piece of 2x2 (ish, think it was metric...), then patched the damaged area's w a few welds from both inside and outside.
Flex/warp etc, not sure yet, cars off the road due to a similar issue w the rear captive nuts. Everything is falling apart lately, but as Fred-sub and Mudrat said, once fixed it should stay fixed. Time will tell.
U seem quite interested in what happened to me, whats ur situation, similar hey?
Smokey.
Welds are a patch job, mostly from the outside, the black stuff is melted tar that came through. The front left wheel had taken a hard hit, and riped out all but the rear outside block buckling the floor. Was pushed in a few cm's. So bashed it out with a piece of 2x2 (ish, think it was metric...), then patched the damaged area's w a few welds from both inside and outside.
Flex/warp etc, not sure yet, cars off the road due to a similar issue w the rear captive nuts. Everything is falling apart lately, but as Fred-sub and Mudrat said, once fixed it should stay fixed. Time will tell.
U seem quite interested in what happened to me, whats ur situation, similar hey?
Smokey.
Yeah, i did something quite similar to what you have done with you front left blocks.. i hit something too hard, and the blocks pulled the captive nuts thru the body, only one hasnt fully come thru yet.. Have done a dodgey temp mr fix it job, but it didnt last long and came apart again..
Its a shame how only one bolt will go into the cabin.. that makes it a bit more difficult as i would have liked to strenghtn them all up thru the cabin.
Cheers
Adam
Its a shame how only one bolt will go into the cabin.. that makes it a bit more difficult as i would have liked to strenghtn them all up thru the cabin.
Cheers
Adam
Fatz - Not too sure hey. All three are different lengths. I used the same one as that went through the floor, as it was already there from a previous owners "fixit job". And the other two were the original ones. Though I did have to get one longer one, coz I used a longer one by accident on the nut that would not stay welded (dodgy weld) and was not game to try to undo it in case I could not find the thread again, as that nut was welded into the chassis and is not accessible anymore..lolFatz wrote:Hey smokey.. just wondering.. what size bolt (length) did u use for this fix??
i am going to start it this weekend..
Cheers
Adam
As long as u use high tensile. Mine have a 8.8 on them and were from Bolt master in penrith. 2 for $13...peanuts when i only need a one (bought a spare just in case)
If I may make a suggestion though, something I will do sometime in the future when I have the time and money to get the shop to do it, is to cut and weld a plate larger that the lift block, say 5mm black steel. Weld it to the body just to strengthen the area. For the ones that have not been ripped out, just cut the hole and leave the nut in the body where it is. Make sure they/u make since clean welds all the way round the plate. I'll lift the car by another 5mm but no biggie. and should stop the nuts being ever ripped out again. In fact if they should ever get ripped out it will prob tare the car app art in that spot!!! Also u could weld a bar of metal between the three lift blocks to essentially make them all connected to help reduce flex so the stress is put evenly to all three blocks and nuts inside the body.
Does that make sense???
Smokey
