Quick Story Of A Crippled Pony, New Donor Car And Some Swap Questions. Also, Introduction.

maverick31210

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Mar 5, 2013
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Alright, so a quick story on what happened. A couple of years ago, I picked up a 90 notch. Loved the car, was not a daily driver. Had plans for a build over time. Car had headers, full exhaust, gears, and a couple of other things...nothing too crazy. Anyway, one night this past December I slammed it into a center divider. It cracked both driver's side wheels and tweaked the front clip. The entire left side of the frame was tweaked, the K member, and the firewall was pushed back slightly. Not terrible on the firewall but enough to where the clutch will no longer engage. The thing is a pain in the ass to move around with a bent control arm and no clutch. I was super bummed as I'm sure you can tell. Oh well...:poo: happens, you make mistakes and you move on.

...So this coming weekend I will be bringing home a new Fox. It's a 92 hatch that has been sitting at the shop at work for about 2 years. Boss bought it with plans to build into a monster. So we tore the thing down...well halfway. Shortly after, business grew...fast. We moved into a new facility and the car was left in the old warehouse with no time to work on it. In the meanwhile, boss bought a :leghump:ing monster. A fully built, 91 notch clicking off 9s on a conservative tune. Well the time has come to clear out those old units and not renew the lease. That car is coming home to me. It's completely stock and was purchased from an overweight woman who never drove it. The plan is to swap all my goodies on to it.

Few questions I do have:

-The new car is an auto. I want to swap in my 5 spd. I have read and continue to read up on the procedure and someone always run into needing some sort of hard to find part. If I have a fully complete donor car, I should not have any issues right? I can use the drive shaft, cross member, etc...?

My old car is fully complete...only thing wrong with it is the damage to the front right hand wheel assembly and frame rail.


-My current exhaust...as far as I know, there should be no difference between the hatch and notch variants right? I have a set of BBK headers and full Magnaflow system that I would love to keep.

Any other tips appreciated.
 
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If the hatch is an LX, your exhaust is the same from front to back. You are also correct on all the swap parts, assuming nothing is damaged on the old car. You will need to swap computers, and the trans harness may be different and need to be swapped (for reverse lights, etc). I would also swap out the rear axle assembly as a whole unit so that you can keep the gears you had put in the notch. That will be a simple unbolt/bolt in and bleed brakes job.
 
if everything on the donor car is in good shape, it will swap over. i ran into one problem when I did one... the clutch cable came out about an inch short. i got a quadrant with the three hooks and it worked well with the existing adjustable cable. you should probably replace the quad and cable anyways while in there. i dont know if they moved the firewall forward between the two years or what might have changed. this was going from an 89 to a 92.
 
Awesome...thanks guys! I have heard that it is not necessary to swap the computer? I mean no biggie if I have to, from what I remember that thing is pretty much plug and play.

...and yes, both cars are LXs.
 
Cool, shouldn't be too big of an issue. I'm just glad I have the spare car...I'd hate having to track all the miscellaneous parts down.

I also heard something about swapping the cluster out as well?

Can you ballpark how long the swap takes. I know it varies wildly from one instance to the next but you know....
 
when i did it, the interior was already gutted. im not sure how far you have to rip the interior out to change the pedals. provided the exhaust on both cars arent rust welded together, and you have every part and tool you need... i could knock it out in 8hrs. any little thing could stop the show though.