Fox Subframe installation cost?

My recommendation would be to remove the seats and roll the carpet up away from the seat mounts. Then have the car put on a frame machine and leveled and trued. Then and only then while it is still on the frame machine, have the subframes welded in place. That way the car isn't crooked or twisted out of alignment and level. IT WILL COST MORE $$$ BUT IT WILL BE DONE RIGHT.

I‘d say that it’s not as easy as everybody thinks it is. And no overhead welding job on galvanized steel that is intended as a structural reinforcement should be a first time welding experiment.

And if sht-Welding in a SF connector just to get it stuck in place is the standard, you may as well bolt it in.

Firstly You’re laying on your side or back having to brace the welding gun with the hand/arm that that you need to help hold you up, and the higher you get the car in the air, the more you need to hold yourself up. It’s dirty, galvanized metal, which pops, and spatters, with occasional blobs of molten metal that “drip”, then hit either you laying directly underneath, or hit the ground, and then pop up and hit you.

You will get burned.

Regardless of how empty the interior is, the factory sound deadening is also just as likely to light up. Or at the very least, smoke the interior up real good.

A weld doesn’t have to be pretty to have good integrity, but i’ve seen plenty of pictures of welded in SF connectors that are not only Not pretty, but are also highly suspect.

id think that a gutted interior project with a full exhaust in the way, a transmission hanging down in the middle ( cause you have to get on both sides of the SF) and 30 years worth of grease and crud to clean off wold be worth at least 200 bucks if somebody was paying to have it done.

Have any of you done a convertible? Is the car in question a convertible? Carbed or injected? My first set of SFC's that I installed in a Fox were from Global West, they consisted of the SFC, a jacking rail and the cross ties between the two. The impact of the installation was apparent immediately! Literally pulling out of my sloped driveway it was apparent that the twisting I wasn't even aware of was gone. Having said that I've used GW SFC's and never looked back but based on my experience with their other products I'm sure MM's SFC's are a quality product as well.

To my questions above, welding SFC's in a convertible is not as easy as in a coupe or hatch. First you have to remove all of the factory "reinforcements" in the car. True they are only pop riveted in but there are approximately 150 1/4" pop rivets and you have to drill out every one of them. Then you have to deal with brake, fuel and vacuum lines that run along the floor along the inside of the passenger rocker panel. If it's carbed it's pretty simple but the fuelie cars have additional lines for vacuum and return fuel. Unfortunately the factory didn't take into consideration that we'd be installing SFC's so they are right in the way. If it's an 89-93 GT the side skirts will have to come off of both sides.

Doing this on a frame machine or other jig would be perfect world but it can be done quite successfully without, just be sure that the weight of the car is on the tires. Not on jackstands under the A arms and axle, on the tires. The set I just completed I stacked 5 pallets under each tire which gave me about 2 feet of additional work space. The pallets were all new, high quality and all of the same dimension. I placed them in such a way that the weight of the vehicle sat right on top of the middle cross brace all they way to the floor. It worked great and I was never in any danger. To be fair though I have a 2 post lift and had the lift pads located out of the way but able to catch the car if the pallets did fail.

I've never had to pull interior panels to install the GW SFC's Each end saddles over the factory subframe with an intermediate brace at the back of the forward frame rail adjacent to the tail housing of the tranny. The floor reinforcement welds to the SFC and bolts in place where the rear seat bolts come thru the floor. The jacking rails are stitch welded along the lower rocker panel.

As I said above depending on what you're dealing with I would say that $260 is a fair price, undoubtedly you can find it for more money or less but ultimately it all comes down to will they do it right? Do you trust them? As to doing it yourself as a first time project I'd say that's a pass. Remember you want it done right. I welded in my first set with a little wire feed welder that I bought at Sams, the only problem I had is that it was such a light duty machine that it would only weld a couple of inches and then shutoff for 10 minutes to cool down.

Happy motoring!