For some of you out there, one day you may find that it is necessary to replace the radiator support. In my case mine got badly bent and I needed to weld in a new one. I haven't found a write up on this yet so since I am in the middle of it I just figured I would write one. I am not a welder or anything so there might be an easier way to do this but this was a simple way for me.
The job is pretty much just common sense and does not take too much work with the right tools.
Here are the tools you will need:
Ratchet with Sockets [10,12,14]
An air compressor
A Dremel
A welder
A Die Grinder
Hammer and Chisel
Pliers
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First you are going to need to remove your bumper, headlights, and fenders which are easy so I wont explain this. You will also need to remove the intercooler which is just 3 bolts and it pops out.
For the radiator you will need to disconnect the two top brackets, disconnect the hoses (make sure you drain the fluid first), and just pull it straight up out of the car.
Once everything is removed and nothing is connected to the radiator support here is where it gets kind of frustrating. I had no plans for saving the old radiator support so I just hacked it up to make it as easy as possible but you may want to approach this differently.
Here is how my old radiator support looked after I was done with it
And here is what the car looked like after.
What i did was dremel off the radiator support before the welds. I've highlighted the areas below.
The reason I did this was because unless you really grind down on those spot welds you are still going to have to tug and pull to seperate the radiator support from the frame and it is much easier to do when the pieces are smaller imo.
You need to really make sure to grind down deep on the welds. Once you get the welds grinded down just get some pliers and start pulling away at the radiator support, if you are lucky and did a good job grinding the welds it will just pull right off but if you didnt just pull up as much as you can and get the hammer and chisel and use this to break through the weakened metal. Its a bit tough and frustrating sometimes but just keep at it and it will eventually come off. Here is some pics of the frame after I removed the frame and dremeled it down. Its still a bit rough and needs to be grinded more flush but just to give you an idea.
At this stage all you really need to do is get out the die grinder and get some sanding stones and just grind down until the welds are flush with the frame. It might also be a good idea to repaint or add some type of rust pretection before you add the new radiator support.
I havent had a chance to reweld the new support yet but I will add on to this thread when I do. Its pretty simple explanation though if you know how to weld.
Although I hope no one ever has to go through with this job because its not very fun I hope I've helped those that needed to do this. Its not hard at all to do it is just time consuming and can be frustrating. It took me about 4 hours to do but I was not exactly in a rush and my tools are not the greatest. If you have any questions feel free to ask and I will update this thread with answers.
