How To Swap Your Trunk (02-07 Edition)

[MakeItRoar]

Hey, there's a bunch of threads on people who want to change their trunks, but no thread on HOW to do it, so I figured I'd make one as I swap my trunk this weekend. I have to do my torsion bars, and my lock cylinder along with the trunk, so if you get stuck on your install, hopefully the following will help. I'm not swapping until tomorrow, but here are steps one and two.

1. Obtain a '02-'07 trunk that you want to swap, and make sure it's the same color. Also, get your hands on the new brackets and torsion bars, in the event that you want to change those too. (Special thanks to Teflon_Jones at this point).





2. Get a hold of a '02 to '07 wrx/sti that you want the wing to go on.



More to come 3/19/11 and 3/20/11!

[MakeItRoar]

HOLY TRUNK. This process took me way longer than I anticipated, but hopefully you'll learn from my mistakes, and this process will be a lot easier for you guys.

2.5 Get another person. I chose my friend Jack.



3. Open the trunk, and remove your deck lid. Do it by taking out these 4 bolts.





BEFORE YOU DO THAT: REMOVE THE BRAKE LIGHT WIRE THAT RUNS ALONG THE RIGHT BRACKET.

The best way to remove the lid is have a person at each corner, take one bolt out each, then loosen the other one to halfway. At the same time, have both people hand screw the bolt out, and have their other hand supporting the wing. (Remember, it's open at this point.) We used our heads to help balance it until we could get our other hands on the edge. Make sure you have cardboard or something laid down to protect the wing when you put it down. Your car should look something like this:




ONLY IF YOU ARE REPLACING TORSION BARS:
REPEAT, ONLY IF YOU ARE REPLACING TORSION BARS:
Now come the torsion bars.

Taking these out is REALLY easy.

To put in, these are really hard to do, and 6 of my fingers were fine afterwards. The other 4 were the opposite of that.

You should see this:




Take a rubber mallet, and tap at the S curve, the part NOT in a bracket. Tap towards the opposite side. (If you are tapping at the left S curve, tap to the right.)
Once you can see that it's staying in just BARELY, get ready for a loud noise, and get out of the trunk if you're in it. (My first poor life choice was to stay inside). The torsion bars are under a lot of stress, so they like to get out of where they are. With the final tap, you'll hear a metal clang, and it will fall into the trunk. Your bracket will fall, so you can have someone/something hold it up so that it doesn't fly down. Then, do this on the other side.



STI Bars VS. WRX Bars:



They're thicker, and have a bigger bend. Sweet.

I painted mine black so that they matched the trunk, brackets, and looked good with the rest of the car.

When both bars are out, you have a decision to make. I found it a lot easier to put the deck lid on, THEN put the torsion bars on because i had something to weigh the brackets down to get the force to lock them in, and you will want to do this too.



IF YOU AREN'T DOING TORSION BARS, START HERE NOW:
IF YOU AREN'T DOING TORSION BARS, START HERE NOW:

4. Time for the new deck lid.



If you're small like me, you can set the trunk down where it belongs, then climb through the middle divider with a ratchet to attach it. If you aren't, we undid it and redid it that way just for you. Then we remembered we were supposed to take pictures.

You put the trunk on the brackets upright, and use one hand to hold it in place while putting a bolt in on each side simultaneously. Then to the other bolt, hold your breath, and let go. If you don't have torsion bars on cause you're swapping those too, you need a third person to hold the brackets up, or some impressive jerry rig to hold them up.

We don't have any pictures of that because there was only two of us.

Don't forget to reconnect the brake light wire!!!



Now shut the trunk and celebrate!!

Unless you're redoing torsion bars. You should keep reading.

[MakeItRoar]

You'll see something like this:





I've got a personal story to go along with my epic battle against torsion bars, but I'll just explain how to do it, and rant later.

Take your new bars, and look at them. Figure out which ones push in which direction, and grab the one that should have it's S curve on the left side of the trunk, it needs to go in first. Put it in like this:



(My poor life choice 2)*

Next is the HARD part. Get whoever is strongest in the trunk, and have then lie down under the bracket on the right side. They must bend the bar into the frame bracket, which is moderately hard. I found that it's much easier while screaming and swearing because it converts the anger to torque and it's easier to bend. Too bad my screams need moar low..... Once you get it in the frame bracket, it's time to thank Mark Wahlburg that you brought a friend. You'll need to bend the bar FARTHER in the frame bracket, and have your friend lift up that little hinge on the lid bracket so that you can get the bar in there.



Then rinse and repeat on the other side. There's a small pivot point equidistant between the brackets. Push the bars into there so that they will work (My poor life choice 3)*

*My poor life choices are mistakes I made that cost me hours of time, and all of my patience.

Everyone doing their torsion bars is now allowed to celebrate!!! Your trunks are now finished as well!! When you close it, you'll hear a metal shifting noise, which is the torsion bars settling themselves. It's totally normal, but won't happen to everyone. It only happens once (on each side) and then you're fine. If it keeps happening, you've put the bars in in the wrong order.

Ahhh...done.

[MakeItRoar]

Mods, is there a way that you could put this in the DIY category as well?

[MakeItRoar]

Bump for anyone that figured out how to swap the lock cylinder (or wants to read this.) I've given it quite a few tries, and I have NO idea how to do it. I took out the plastic locky plungy things, and pulled the back cover off as far as the cable will let me, and then stared at it in utter confusion. Any tips, tricks, cheat codes, easter eggs?