Above 1200 Sq/FT Bailey's Barn Build

[mwbailey]

A continuing saga: My son, recently past 51 yo, has a Honda Element that his younger daughter was driving when she left the road. There was a bit of body damage as well as suspension destruction. He gathered up body parts from here and there and had a body shop put them on. Then the body shop recommended that he replace several pieces of the front suspension as well as pointed out that his daughter had "installed" an additional inspection port for the automatic transmission!!

He was able to find a cheap transport of the car to my place and wanted to use the two post lift to help replace some suspension parts as well as remove the transmission. None of this turned out to be very easy to do, but by the time we got the transmission out, we were expert at removing and re-installing the subframe!

Honda suggested a special tool to hold the engine while removing the transmission. Heck, who needs a special tool when you have an engine lift, a motorcycle jack, and a three ton jack?! We got it out, with some difficulty -- what happen to those good old standard transmissions with four bolts and a universal joint? Electrical connections are NOT universal and there was ONE bolt pointed from engine to transmission instead of the other way around like they are supposed to be. But, we persisted and, voila:

 

[mwbailey]

Oh, and a few wood blocks, etc. Yep, that's a transfer case that we removed, also. . . .

 

[xtremek]

That new orifice in the trans was for ventilation.

 

[mwbailey]

Well, dang! Nobody told us the trans NEEDED custom ventilation.

My son got a junk yard transmission that was "working when the car came in". . . yeah, yeah, we'll see about that. With a good bit of labor, the replacement transmission is in the car, but there are still a number of connections to make: wires, hoses, shift cable, etc. The subframe is back in, as well. Took some work to get that to align. . . .




My son says we won the Jenga blocks game -- nothing fell, but at times it seemed we had too many degrees of freedom restricted.

 

[mwbailey]

The Element is still not "roadworthy" but I found a 1991 Miata Special Edition on BringATrailer for $14,000. I figured it was time to get mine OUT of the real elements! Looks like it needs a waxing to get the BRG back to looking good. . . .

Hope the lift doesn't fall