Broken rear stabilizer bar bracket bolt in crossmember.

[Sotarts]

I was unbolting the rear stabilizer bar (sway bar/anti-sway bar, for those who prefer other part names) brackets from the crossmember, when the bolt snapped off. I guessing the last owner overtightened it, since it took me no effort to achieve that (old bushings were replaced with poly ones).

The broken part of the bolt is flush with crossmember's surface. Obviously I'm stuck removing the the crossmember, drilling out the bolt and repairing the threads.

I want to know how much hell am I in for. Can't find anything relative in Haynes repair manual except for mention of it in Differential Carrier Removal procedure.

Can someone with experience in this offer me any advice and tricks/shortcuts? How many other rusted bolts it's possible to break down there while unbolting things?

 

[MackZ24]

aovsi> I've dropped the entire rear subframe quite recently. If all you need to do is drill out the one bolt for the swaybar brace hopefully you have enough room underneath the car to drop it down. If that's the case, I would just remove the two nuts that hold the moustache brace behind the rear differential, and then the two nuts and two bolts holding the subframe braces at the front of it. This will drop the whole rear subframe down (you will also have to unbolt the struts if you haven't already to get at the swaybar).

An option that you might want to try is putting a rolling floor jack underneath the rear differential to hold the back of the subframe in place. That way you can lower it down to get at the bolt you need to drill and just jack it back up into place. But be aware, if you do this the front of the subframe/crossmember will still fall forward and place the whole unit on an angle. And the entire assembly is quite heavy! Good luck, and if you need any more help feel free to PM me or post.

 

[Sotarts]

aovsi> I've dropped the entire rear subframe quite recently. If all you need to do is drill out the one bolt for the swaybar brace hopefully you have enough room underneath the car to drop it down. If that's the case, I would just remove the two nuts that hold the moustache brace behind the rear differential, and then the two nuts and two bolts holding the subframe braces at the front of it. This will drop the whole rear subframe down (you will also have to unbolt the struts if you haven't already to get at the swaybar).

An option that you might want to try is putting a rolling floor jack underneath the rear differential to hold the back of the subframe in place. That way you can lower it down to get at the bolt you need to drill and just jack it back up into place. But be aware, if you do this the front of the subframe/crossmember will still fall forward and place the whole unit on an angle. And the entire assembly is quite heavy! Good luck, and if you need any more help feel free to PM me or post.

The car is currently in the air, about 17" from the ground to bottom of the car, 36"+ from the ground to the top of fender/wheel wells. Should be enough space.

The manual doesn't mention unbolting the struts to get at the swaybar. I really don't want anything hanging halfway in the air, don't want anything being bent in a way that it shouldn't. I'm not sure what you mean by "mustache brace", I'll look into it. Anyway, I haven't looked really well into it, so I'll look tomorrow and see what you're talking about.

 

[MackZ24]

Well you should have more than enough room to drop everything down and still have the space you need to drill. If you unhook the struts, moustache brace and subframe braces there shouldn't be anything still hooked up to "bend" in a way it shouldn't. At that point the whole assembly should be free. I am pretty sure that's all there is, but I could be missing something. Here's a picture of the front subframe brace's (small piece in the middle of the picture. I'm at work with no photo editing software, otherwise I'd circle parts for you;

http://www.mreah.com/gallery/talonprogress/subframe_brace

I couldn't find any pictures saved on my album that demonstrated the moustache brace well, but you can't really miss it. It is shaped like a moustache and connects in the middle to the rear differential (by two bolts) and to the body of the car by a nut/bolt on each end. You would only need to remove the nuts from the two connections at either side of the car to drop the whole assembly down.

It will probably be dark tonight by the time I get home but if you still need pictures by tomorrow I can snap some with the digital and circle the areas that you need to disconnect, etc.

 

[Sotarts]

http://www.mreah.com/gallery/talonprogress/subframe_brace

I couldn't find any pictures saved on my album that demonstrated the moustache brace well, but you can't really miss it. It is shaped like a moustache and connects in the middle to the rear differential (by two bolts) and to the body of the car by a nut/bolt on each end. You would only need to remove the nuts from the two connections at either side of the car to drop the whole assembly down.

It will probably be dark tonight by the time I get home but if you still need pictures by tomorrow I can snap some with the digital and circle the areas that you need to disconnect, etc.

That's basically the rear crossmember.

 

[MackZ24]

Alright, well I can't circle the spots from work, but that's ok. When I removed the subframe I already had everything else torn down, so I think I forgot to mention a few things. You *could* drop it down the way I said, but you are probably going to put too much stress on the axles if you don't unbolt them. If you want to get access to that spot with enough room to drill you're probably going to have to remove the axles and atleast unhook the control arms. Either way, the moustache brace connectors I was talking about are most easily located by looking between numbers 4 and 5 on that picture, but just back a little bit, right behind the axles.

I was not used to having everything hooked up since my car's been out of commission for a year! But you'll need to unhook the above, as well as the driveshaft from the rear differential. With all that work, you might be better off just picking up or borrowing a right-angle drill and just trying to make enough room to fit it in there!