AHHH!!!! youve gotta be kidding me

[highoctane]

so im drivin today, i start to hear a clicking noise, i thought it was just my exhaust tapping on the heat shield, so i was drivin to work, when all of the sudden I lose my steering, luckily I was only doin about 10 mph. i was lucky enough to make it to the side of the road, when i inspect my car o see what happened, i saw something unbelievable, my subframe had fallen out on the back side of the engine, which ripped the steering apart, anyone ever hear of this kind of thing happening.

[brian89gp]

Yes, I believe (not 100% certain) there is a recall over it in certain high salt states. The retaining plates for the subframe bolts can rust through and cause what happened to you. I'd talk to a GM dealer and see if they will fix it under that recall.

[v6h.o.]

we had a early 90's GP in work for the exact same thing about 2 months ago.

[highoctane]

cool, im callin a dealership now to find out about a recall, thanx.

[SCREECH]

I do recall reading about...that...recall....hmm....no pun intended. Anyway, I live outside of Niagara Falls, Canada, and I've had to replace at least one of these retaining plates and bolts on both my Celeb Euro Wagons ('87 and '90) as well as 1 on the '92 Transport I just bought (shop that safetied it missed it cause it was still almost holding together I guess).

I had an alignment done on my '87 Celeb at one time, and then a day later I hear this clunk as I'm driving along and the steering jerks to one side and the alignment is out again. So I go back to the alignment shop, and that's when they showed me what happened. I was fortunate that the other one was still relatively solid. GM wanted a considerable amount for those things too - something in excess of like $20Cdn for 1 bolt and retainer plate...might have been even like almost $20 each for bolt and retaining plate...that was a few years ago.

When I found that the one on the van was shot, I just pulled the one I had replaced off the '87 wagon since I'm parting it shortly anyway.

When you replace them, COAT the retaining plate (both sides) with grease, as well as the threads on the bolt with antiseize compound. The antiseize is a MUST as if you ever had to bring these bolts down, breakin 'em SUCKS. Yes, I did break one off once. Fortunately, I had a stud wrench that I used in conjunction with a torch to walk the nub out of the cage nut built into the frame.

QUESTION: Does anyone know if you are able to change those cage nuts up in the frame if they get screwed or if a bolt breaks off way up inside?