wileys

Hi. I'm new here and all the information on these forums is great!

My wife just dragged this Escort wagon home and I find I have to do some frame welding to it. Nothing appears to have moved, but it has cracks on the rear frame rails where the trailing arm pin is on LR. That was bad enough, but when I looked on the RR I found the trailing arm and front lateral link has a few holes rusted through them. Also both rear springs are broken a few coils down from the top. Canadian Tire says they carry the front lateral link for $21, but the trailing arm is a dealer item. I called Ford and they said the lateral link is $246 and the trailing arm is $94 and the little brittle springs are $161 each. That's in CAN funds. The guy was confused with the suspension part names and I am just curious if those prices sound accurate? Also could I weld the holes in the lateral link and trailing link, or even add some flat bar to it/them? Would it pass safety inspection in N.S. I wonder? For weak little suspension parts that rust out it seems like allot of money for a bit of tin and the price of the spings is crazy. I just put struts and springs on a Sunbird that cost very little more then the cost of those springs. Any opinions would be great.

Thanks

wileys

As a follow up ... in case anyone is even mildly interested ... it's a good thing my wife loved this car! Anyway I got it finished to the point of passing MVI. Yes it is ok to weld the suspension components if it is done correctly. I ended up buying a MIG welder to fix this car because there was so much to do to it. I was ready to sell parts off it before I got started. The rear springs were $70/pr with a bit of hunting. I got the lateral link at a junk yard for $25 and I welded the trailing arm. When I removed the rear springs I seen the upper mounting plates were toast and the struts were toast. The set of new springs, mounts and struts were $400 with the buy 1, get half of second strut deal. I won't get into the details of the nasty things that I run into when I done this job unless someone else wants to know.

Now onto the fun job of figuring out the wire hacks that were caused by Canadian Tire installing a remote starter. The receipts were all in the glove box ... over $2500 since June of 03.

One other interesting thing to mention is when we transfered the title (we had to have a new inspection to do so) we found out the car had been reported as junked (which was ez for me to believe). The RMV put a complaint in against the dealer that sold it to my wife. It may be interesting to see what he has to say about that. Anyway they had to give us another form to be filled out by the mechanic that inspected the car! She bought the car As is Where is, but the RMV said he is legally not allowed to sell a vehicle reported as junk unless he has a junk yard license. I don't know, but I have done so much to it and it looks and drives pretty good ... now I have to finish it.