92 laser to 92 talon rear end conversion

[____Kurt____]

Ok so I'm almost 100% complete with this conversion but I'm getting stuck on the bumper mounting. I searched around and I couldn't get the answer I'm looking for. My laser support bracket is lower than a talon or eclipse and I'm trying to come up with the best solution to fit the bumper right. I did see in another conversion thread (2g conversion) that some said to use L-brackets to support the bumper. I know I'm not the only one to do this conversion, so is this the best way to fix this problem? And please no "you should keep it as a laser" answers. I bought the car as a half ass conversion to an eclipse/talon and i already have all the parts to make it a talon. Thanks guys.
When I got it:

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Gap difference :

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[whe3ls]

here is my 91 laser with the talon rear

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[constant_proj21]

I cut the stock mounting points, moved them up to fill the gap, and welded them back on the car. Its a pretty straight forward way of doing it, as long as you have your welder. Mock the bumper up on the rear, without the center light section in, mark where you need to move it, and cut and weld. Just make sure to measure carefully.

I wish I had pics, I have seen threads like this before and wish I did a How To.

 

[____Kurt____]

I cut the stock mounting points, moved them up to fill the gap, and welded them back on the car. Its a pretty straight forward way of doing it, as long as you have your welder. Mock the bumper up on the rear, without the center light section in, mark where you need to move it, and cut and weld. Just make sure to measure carefully.

I wish I had pics, I have seen threads like this before and wish I did a How To.

I was thinking that and that might be the best possible solution, but since I found this problem AFTER I completely edged out the back I would prefer not to be cutting and welding and needing to refinish it. So far the L-bracket idea sounds the most practical way for me but I am curious to see other people's solutions.
Thank you pro.

here is my 91 laser with the talon rear

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What did you do to support the top of the bumper?
Thanks

 

[TunerJunkie]

A buddy of mine did this conversion to his 92 and he told me you have to cut off the support from your talon. Then grind off the lasers support and grind the spot welds down since there in different spots and then he said he just attached the talon support with some bolts.

If you end up going this route just make sure to obviously paint over the spots you ground down, sure you know this but it doesn't hurt to throw it out there.

 

[POS_Tsi]

Looks good man, congrats

 

[ilco187]

I dont know about you all but i prefer the laser look over talon anyday.

 

[Ricardo18]

I dont know about you all but i prefer the laser look over talon anyday.

+1

I was a bit perplexed, but to each their own I guess.

 

[TunerJunkie]

Forgot to mention, when my buddy finished with the swap the one thing I noticed is that when he puts his turn signal on it flashes both the amber and brake light section of the tails. Never did find out why just yet.

 

[whe3ls]

I was thinking that and that might be the best possible solution, but since I found this problem AFTER I completely edged out the back I would prefer not to be cutting and welding and needing to refinish it. So far the L-bracket idea sounds the most practical way for me but I am curious to see other people's solutions.
Thank you pro.


What did you do to support the top of the bumper?
Thanks

i cut the center out of the rail and mounted bumper to the edges of the stock rail

 

[dammitcam]

how do i do this on my 91 gsx?

 

[Dhan]

How did you guys move the stock muffler over so it fit the 1gb Talon bumper?

 

[buhay6]

Ya how do you do this on the eclipse? I'm missing some tail light parts and i prefer the talon rear anyways so I was thinking it would be a direct swap?.....guess i was wrong again! sorry for the thread steal there but may as well cover the whole topic for all models in one go.

found a thread with some good info, not a lot of visual pics tho, maybe if people doing the mod can take a lot of pick and do a good write up people could just be directed right there, save on repeat topics again.

 

[Dhan]

Ya how do you do this on the eclipse? I'm missing some tail light parts and i prefer the talon rear anyways so I was thinking it would be a direct swap?.....guess i was wrong again! sorry for the thread steal there but may as well cover the whole topic for all models in one go.

I took a few photos from my swap. This is for a 1ga Laser, but from the shop manual, it looks to be pretty similar to your 1gb Eclipse.

As you can see, the tails and bumper are different. The center area dips down and the muffler has to be moved.

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For the swap, all I needed was the 1gb Talon tails and bumper. A fella on DSMtalk said he needed different L-shaped brackets that mount right above the red side markers, but I was just able to reuse the Laser brackets.
Also, the wiring is different. If your 1gb Talon taillights come with light bulbs, you'll see what I mean. The wiring plug-ins are different and the bulbs themselves are different models. You can either splice a 1gb Talon harness into you existing wiring, or you can just make your existing light bulbs fit into the Talon tails by trimming away the appropriate plastic tabs (which is what I did). The only wire splicing I did, was for the blinkers, because I relocated them farther from the original source.
For the red side markers (not pictured above), I reused my original Laser's.
The reverse lights and license plate illuminators also had to be kind of retrofitted into the new Talon setup. On the Laser and the Eclipse, they're down at the bottom, on the Talon, they're up top. The wiring harnesses are of course different. These will also need to be spliced or the bulbs will somehow have to be made to fit into the new Talon setup (what I did).

And a side note on splicing. Get yourself a decent solder iron. Don't just cut the wire and then braid copper wire, followed by a wrapping of electric tape. That's the farmer's method Sure it works, but it's liable to fail. Soldering will make for a perfect connection indefinitely.

The other hurdle you'll run into, is mounting the Talon bumper. Here you can see how the lateral mounting rail is in the way of the part that dips down.

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So I did what everyone else recommended and carefully sawed two notches out on either end of the mounting rail. The welds that hold the rail on seem fairly robust, but I still was careful not to be too rough on the rail when sawing. I took my time. I also like to be able to put things back the way they were, so I kept the rail in usable shape.
After sawing both ends, I heated up the rail (it was 20* outside) and slowly bent it down one section at a time. It came out like this.

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I was doing this in my apt parking lot and don't have the best tools, so it turned out pretty marginal However, it's still usable if I want to revert back to the Laser bumper. All I have to do is bend it back up.
I should probably add, that to support the top of the new Talon bumper, I drilled four new holes on either side of the remaining parts of the rail. This really helped to make things firm and secure.

Finally, the muffler (on my Laser anyway) was not positioned to accept the Talon bumper. In the first picture you can see the muffler tips are too far to the left and touch the bumper.
Until I get my PR catback, this is a problem. But for the moment, I've shimmied the rubber mounts that hold the muffler and the bolts a few inches to clear the bumper. It's by no means permanent.
If you wanted to keep the OE exhaust, you'd have to remove the brackets and remount them over to the right and also bend the exhaust pipe ahead of the muffler.

And that was about it. I can take some more pictures if you want. I have to take the bumper off again anyway because the paint already needs to be fixed in a couple spots.