replacing front unibody.

[03Sleepr]

need to replace my core support, but before I drop money on a parts car I would like some advice on replacing my entire front unibody (from firewall forward..) or just the rad support.

is it as simple as, drill out existing tack welds and re weld?

I know this is probably something for me to let a pro handle, but it's not feasible.
and even if I could afford it I'm sure I would opt to do it myself..

thanks in advance.

[xXManwhoreXx]

Its doable yourself but the only problem is getting everything perfect. If you side sags and you weld it your effed. The only thing I can say is brace and measure like crazy

[Redog]

^^ What he said

I've become extra anal with any work that I've been doing lately. It took me 35 minutes to replace ingition wires about a month ago. I've done the job in the past in less than 10 minutes

[xXManwhoreXx]

half an inch means your going to pull left and no alignment will fix it

[03Sleepr]

that's what I figured, measure 30 times and hope to God it doesn't move.

I was hoping bdyman would chime in and tell me how stupid I'm being before I go spend money on this car. be prepared for a stock part out!

[xXManwhoreXx]

Lol iftpo

[billytheman1188]

Originally Posted by 03Sleepr

I was hoping bdyman would chime in and tell me how stupid

Yes....he will. For good reason....this is one thing you should leave to the professionals. But i and you know it's gonna cost an arm and a leg for that work.....but.....its something you shouldn't mess with if you don't have any experience in that stuff. Good luck

[zman246]

You're underestimating how tricky it is to do total front unibody swap. In our body shop we leave them to our 20+ year veteran body man, never to the inexperienced tech. You've got to know what you're doing. Even a welded in core support would be tricky for a non pro. If the welds aren't good you'd be screwed if you ever got in another accident.

If the Alero core support is bolted in (its probably not but I've never checked) then you could give it a try. That only takes me about an hour on some cars. But it would probably still be tricky if you've never done anything like that before.

[03Sleepr]

Originally Posted by zman246

You're underestimating how tricky it is to do total front unibody swap. In our body shop we leave them to our 20+ year veteran body man, never to the inexperienced tech. You've got to know what you're doing. Even a welded in core support would be tricky for a non pro. If the welds aren't good you'd be screwed if you ever got in another accident.

If the Alero core support is bolted in (its probably not but I've never checked) then you could give it a try. That only takes me about an hour on some cars. But it would probably still be tricky if you've never done anything like that before.

thanks for your advice, maybe I'll stick it out and wait for an Alero with a bad engine so I can just swap everything over.

sure hope I can find any other color besides red

[xXManwhoreXx]

Buy one of those.5 speed coupes in wyoming. Your not that far... 9 hours or so

[bdyman]

any structual part on a unibody and or full frame takes yrs and yrs of experience, im 20 yrs in and i still learn every day, what you want takes frame,body,welding, and more in experience

if your welds are inferior, the core support will fail in another crash, if ya measure and they are dead on,, but if ya dont dry fit all the parts and say eff it im gonna weld it nothing will fit, and your effed

cutting a frame rail isnt easy,, there are sectioing procedures for a reason wrong section on a frame rail your effed!!! even in the i-car allowed 2-4 mm tolerance if your over 4 mm your effed nothing will fit, and the car wont take alignment as well becasue the cradle bolts to the frame rails


your taking on a job that even veterans like me hate to do, i would not do something this big with no experience leave stuff like this to guys like me

[03Sleepr]

Originally Posted by xXManwhoreXx

Buy one of those.5 speed coupes in wyoming. Your not that far... 9 hours or so

I like my v6

and I don't have the money to buy an entire car, so I need to buy one with a bad engine/trans to save some money.

Originally Posted by bdyman

any structual part on a unibody and or full frame takes yrs and yrs of experience, im 20 yrs in and i still learn every day, what you want takes frame,body,welding, and more in experience

if your welds are inferior, the core support will fail in another crash, if ya measure and they are dead on,, but if ya dont dry fit all the parts and say eff it im gonna weld it nothing will fit, and your effed

cutting a frame rail isnt easy,, there are sectioing procedures for a reason wrong section on a frame rail your effed!!! even in the i-car allowed 2-4 mm tolerance if your over 4 mm your effed nothing will fit, and the car wont take alignment as well becasue the cradle bolts to the frame rails


your taking on a job that even veterans like me hate to do, i would not do something this big with no experience leave stuff like this to guys like me

thanks, looks like you and zman talked me out of it. I was looking at how the front end was joined to the body and it didn't look to difficult, good thing I asked before I just dove in.

[bdyman]

lol doesnt look difficult lol look again lol wise choice dont even attempt what ya want to do

[xXManwhoreXx]

Just have a traction bar made.. Would hold your shit together nicely

[03Sleepr]

Originally Posted by bdyman

lol doesnt look difficult lol look again lol wise choice dont even attempt what ya want to do

ok, question then.. say I took two cars into a body shop both stripped down to the unibody, how much would it cost to have the good unibody swapped to my car. no paint, and could you even do that or would you have to order a new OEM unibody?

(rear end is damaged on car with a good front end)

[xXManwhoreXx]

May as well have some kind of tube chassis made lol!

[bdyman]

Originally Posted by 03Sleepr

ok, question then.. say I took two cars into a body shop both stripped down to the unibody, how much would it cost to have the good unibody swapped to my car. no paint, and could you even do that or would you have to order a new OEM unibody?

(rear end is damaged on car with a good front end)

ummm you do realize that the unibody is the car its part of the car we dont swap over unibodies like we do full frame cars, full frame cars are easy time consuming but easy, remove the interior, wire harness, and misc mechanical, 6-8 or more body bolts and lift the body off the frame

a uni body car isnt like that, the only parts that are bolted to the unibody are the front and rear cradles, to replace the rear of the car we would have to treat it like we get junk yard parts

or just clip the ass end....... but we dont do that no more if a car is hit that hard a car totals out and it stays totaled out, i did one rear clip in my day and it was back in the 90`s get my drift

and just cutting and drilling fitting clean up measure frame time mechanical time, your looking at thousands of dollars, trust me its not worth it

take the good car and junk the totaled car, or junk it out to carpart they pay good money for car parts

[falloutboy]

sad but true.
sad, cause there are only 280 Aleros in Germany. And if something body wise happens to mine, I am screwed.
Dang even the rust is bugging me and TÜV like hell

[zman246]

Yup still several thousand dollars. If you have a good engine/trans then you would be better off swapping them into an alero with a blown one. Otherwise junk it and buy a beater for now

[zzyzzx]

Please post pics of rusted radiator support so that we can better assess the situation. Also, I had no idea that cars in El Dorado, KS would rust out that much.