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Old 07-12-2020, 07:52 AM   #1
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Ford Super Duty Owner
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: NW Ohio
Posts: 7,114
Saturn Vue - Repair rusted cradle mounts

This is a common problem with Saturn Vues, the front engine cradle mounts are the low point in the suspension and form a cup. This "cup" fills with water, salt, debris, etc, then rust completely out. This is catastrophic and unsafe to drive (or tow). I had to either scrap this vehicle or find a solution. Since my Vue is otherwise in excellent condition, I started exploring repairs for this.

If you own a Vue and live / drive in the rust bucket states, you may wish to climb under there with a pick hammer and start tapping to see if yours are also rusted away. Mine didn't look to bad, but after I started tapping with a pick, I soon discovered the only thing holding the front cradle was two very thin pieces of sheet metal that hadn't rusted away yet.

Before committing to do the repair, I also inspected the rear suspension, this is also susceptible to rust and broken alignment parts.

THE FIX

I ran across someone else who repaired his. He chose to build new "cups" with heavier sheet metal. I was originally going to attempt this, abut after I started cleaning up the old rust, I got this idea of using a box beam welded to the bottom of the existing frame.

Basically, I cut away the old rusted out mount and then welded a new box beam to the bottom of the original sheet metal frame. I have a lot more detail and photos on my wed site:

http://www.1999southwind.com/toad-2003-saturn-vue/

..
This first photo shows how bad the damage is after doing a little light tapping with a pick. The bottom photo shows the box beam tacked into place for a fit check before welding.
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