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Full Version: 2003 WRX Sedan Project Part 2
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Part 2: WRB Tear Down

Part 2 starts with the tear down of the WRB.  Everything will come out and be put in the Sedona WRX.  I first started with the rear suspension.  Rather than taking off parts one by one, I opted to take out the whole rear suspension as a whole piece.   So that included the knuckles, control arm, both sub frames, the main and the diff. It was rather easy since I had done it 6 months prior.  When I put it all back after giving up on replacing the gas tank, I loosely put all the bolts on. The T-frame (sub frame that holds the diff in) has one spinning bolt, that I could not take out.   Remember, this bolt goes into the chassis frame,  Its a threaded hold, that thread broke off inside and the bolt just spun. Here is the picture of the rear off.   Only thing that is not connected is the coil overs.

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One thing I forgot to explain earlier is that all of the parts underneath the car were going to get a quick restore.   That means knock all the rust off, and paint with some rust inhibitor paint.

Once I got the rear out, I started breaking it down ever further so I could sand it all down, and then paint each part.   I started with taking the diff out.  Diff was rusty on the outside and chunks of metal were coming off.   I wish I had a picture of what it looked before I painted it, but i forgot to take a picture.   Here is the diff after it was sanded and then painted.

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I think a couple of weeks went by before I could work on the car again.  Pretty sure it was one of those weeks I had to travel to California for work.   The week I came back, my parents came to visit. Perfect time for my dad since I was going to pull the motor that weekend.  That Saturday morning, we disconnected the last couple of things before we could pull the motor. As we tried to pull the motor, the bloody thing would not come out.  I re checked everything and made sure it was all disconnected.   But now, it still would not come out.  After messing with it for an hour, I realized that the external waste gate attached was hitting something.  I realized that I needed to take the waste gate off.  As soon as it was off, the motor came off with ease.

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Next came the sub frames, trailing arms, lower and upper control arms. Same as the diff, also rusted to hell. Then I moved to the front of the car.   The drive shaft was already off halfway since I had to disconnect from the diff. I took that drive shaft off that was still connected to the transmission.  Disconnected the shifter linkage from the car.  Rather than just disconnecting from the transmission, I unbolted from the transmission tunnel .

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After that was done, I was able to drop the transmission.   Couple bolts and it came right down.

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I disconnected the coil overs from the knuckles and the strut towers.  The sub frame the motor mounts sits on came out.  Then the power steering frame came out also.  At this point, everything underneath the car was out. One thing I noticed when I took the axles off before dropping the transmission, one of the boots on the passenger side was ripped. 
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Part 3 of these series will be the restoration of the parts that came out underneath the car.