6G Celicas Forums

Easier ways, yes

Better or WORSE, no

If the project is tackled very similarly to that of TMS, then reliability, efficiency, and integrity will be no better, no worse than this project.....but again, GREAT PROJECT TO THE PERSON WHO DID THIS

****edited, posted twice****

This post has been edited by _Jim_: May 7, 2009 - 6:33 PM

yeah but your actually messing with the basic structure of the car. id rather try to cut/weld some type of bracket system to fit the rear end, then cut out the entire rear sub floor, and put a new one back in.
that way if anything ever fails, it will probably be just the diff bracket, but the actual structure of the car will still be in tact.

replacing the subfloor IS the oem way, but i dont know if i would trust something like that done by the diy garage mechanic.

this is nothing compared to some of the things i have seen my step father accomplish...this would be the way i personaly would go about doing an AWD swap...cut out the old, and weld in the new...its not as hard as it looks...yes the entire car looks trashed while your going through the process, but as long as you have time, money, and have a knowldge on how to weld properly then you should have no problem....think of it as cutting and pasting.... ...i will acomplish this one day...once i have my own welder and i get some more experience under my belt

as for the structual integrity, it should be fine as long as its done right...an OEM weld is no better then an experienced DIY garage mechanic, im sure the DIY mechanic can make the welds stornger and better then OEM

sorry joe, but the diy mechanic cant weld as well as the robots that do the precision welding on oem frames (oem doesnt trust humans to do it).
i know jimbo has done a bunch of these types of projects on hotrods, but dealing with a unibody is very different from a hot rod that has a separate body and frame.

can this be done? yes
has it been done? yes

but you have to ask yourself, if one of your welds was to fail, would you rather it just fail at where the diff mounts to the body, or would you rather have the rear end of your car, along with the rear wheels, just completely fly off the back of your car?

Anyway, this is all just me being an internet mechanic. I personally dont think i would have the skill to pull something like this off, nor would I want to risk possible permanent damage to my car. its much easier to buy yourself a 5th gen alltrac, and teach yourself to learn to love it.

not sayin i would try this on my car...but if i were to ever pick up a shell i would defentially give it a try

x2

art, its really not that hard to duplicate the factory pinch welds.
not that the TMS way is the wrong way, cause its not, its effective, and it works, (pipes is an example of that) but this is the factory correct way of doing it.
its the way collision shops properly repair quater panels, ect, drilling out the factory welds and welding in new panels.
doing it this way also allows you to use the additional strut tower bracing that the '4 has, as well as the rear floorpan ect.
in this particular example, they went a little far going all the way up between the lights with it, but thats neither here nor there.
for most DIY guys, this is definetly not the way of doing it, especially if we could get someone to make the crossmembers reliably, but it definetly would be the more factory correct, and IMO stronger. (the strut towers are a big part of that.)
toyota definetly did alot more engineering and testing on those chassis than any of us will ever do, and replicating theyre work any time you can is IMO gonna be the best way to do somthing like this.

come on we can use mine as the guinea pig if Manny can weld it back together