Hornung's Engine and transmission mounts

[Hornung418]

At work will edit later. Car is a hoot to drive, why? Because racecar.

Horney...via TT.

[danewilson77]

Is this going to be a diy? I want to know if I should be excited.

Sent from Williamsburg, VA USA

[GSEN820]

I vote DIY

[Hornung418]

Yes...with some pics. At work...all I want to do is driiiiive!

Horney...via TT.

[Oli77]

:):waldo:kumbaya Sticky!

[Hornung418]

http://i776.photobucket.com/albums/yy41/jhornung318i/IMG_20120726_143641.jpg

Horney...via TT.

[Nomar06]

I'm jelly right now. Loving my AKG FCABs...

[Hornung418]

Did the pic show up? Its broken on TT :(

I wish my trip to work was longer than < mile LOL

Horney...via TT.

[Johnmadd]

Finally can be launched out of the hole now :)

[Hornung418]

Yeah wait till I update pics of the 120K OE mounts...I nearly soiled myself.

Horney...via TT.

[HokieZHP]

Symptoms of bad engine and tranny mounts? I don't know if mine have been changed and I'm kind of scared to find out.

[Hornung418]

If your shift lever moves significantly to the right on heavy acceleration then your mounts are bad. Transmission I'm unsure about. Mine looked okay.

Horney...via TT.

[derbo]

you can also see the engine mounts sag. the clearance from the metal underpan and the oil pan gets surprisingly thin.


Looks great!! What kind of mounts are those?

I need some new diff mounts and thinking of getting some new FCABs in poly while I'm at it.

[Hornung418]

Everything is 75D from AKG. It's quite loud in the cabin. Just turn up the radio. Everything up front is super responsive, and the vibrations under heavy acceleration are just downright primal. Going for a long backwoods drive tomorrow.

Horney...via TT.

[Nomar06]

What do you mean by loud?

[danewilson77]

What do you mean by loud?

Probably road/suspension noise going through the mounts, into the passenger cabin.

[Hornung418]

It's borderline crazy in a street car...There is a really obnoxious vibration under braking in gear through 3.5k rpm. I'm going to take it on a longer drive up to York to see a friend, so I'll see how it is in the back roads, and I'm trying to get on the highway and cruise to see how it will be as far as NVH. So far it's only the one I mentioned before.

Pics on the way. No pics of the mounts in the car yet. I was late to work, took me 6 hours to complete the job on stands. And I'm very, very sore from working on my back.

[Hornung418]

So the first thing I had to do was get the control arms down and out of the way so I could access the Engine Mounts a little easier from below. So I took the old bushes down and used my patented "One Jaw Puller Method" to take them off.

I used a breaker bar that I found in the basement to get the leverage at the awkward angle. Unfortunately I had no half inch drive metric sockets aside from a 11 and a 13mm deepwells. So I did some math and found out that 5/8" is damn near perfect substitute for a 16mm. Most of the bolts down below are quite large.

Undo the two 16mm bolts that hold the bushing to the frame and wiggle to free it.

Take your pulling tool and use the end of the Control Arm to slide it off.

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With those out of the way you can successfully access the 16mm nut that mounts to the front subframe. You can see it here on the passenger mount.

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Break them loose and remove the nuts. Now that you've been under the car for 90 minutes, return topside and get some sun. Here is the tricky part...getting the top mounts undone. I used a U-joint and a 6" extension plus the breaker bar used as an extension. Torque was provided with a large screwdriver through the top end of the breaker bar. Passenger side was very tough to break free. I actually punched my self in the face and busted my lip because I glanced down to check my angle and gave it one final turn :facepalm

Now that you've got both Engine Mounts free, it's time to lift the engine. Bentley says to use an engine support bar, but that was $60 that I didn't have. So I got a wooden board and jacked up the engine enough to wiggle the Driver Side free. Much to my surprise behold 13 years and 120,000 miles. Driver Side on the right...
:jawdrop

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Damn near soiled myself. You can't tell when a 330 pound engine is sitting on it, but the oil was visible and the PS reservoir put a dent in the hood So I knew something was up. Engine Crank moves in a clockwise fashion, so the engine block moves counter clockwise.

Thus, the passenger mount is lowered about half an inch and the driver mount is completely severed. Time is a powerful thing. You can see how it's position has shifted off center and favoring the fender side to the left.

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Continuing. Once you have pulled the Driver Mount, replace it with your new mount and lower the engine back down. Screw the top and bottom mounts in place, but don't torque the top nut. You don't want to damage the mount with an extreme rotational force. The engine is at a 10 degree angle to the Passenger Side so in order for us to lift that side we need to tether the Driver Side Engine Arm. This will put the pivot point here, instead of the transmission mounts.

Now jack the engine up in the same manner as before. This will raise the passenger side. Take your time and uses small increments, you want it just high enough so you can slip the mount off and the new one on. Unfortunately, my mount had sunk and the new mount was about a half inch higher, so I had to crawl out, jack it up slightly and then try again. Replace your heat shield on the passenger mount and then torque the bottom and return to the top to torque both sides to 35 lb/ft. Reinstall the FCABs and you can now tackle the transmission.

[pictures of Poly Mounts here]

This was only difficult because of the tight space as I was farther back under the car. I am very sore because of it.

Use the jack to support the transmission, don't raise it up necessarily, if anything let it sag some. Remove the support brace that the mounts attach to, and unscrew the bottom nuts on the transmission mounts. Plenty of space now.

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The Poly Mounts are a bolt through design, so the best way to approach it is to install them then slide into place over the transmission bracket. You'll find that you can then align the support brace with the mounts in place and just go ahead and torque 'em down. Not sure of the torque spec, just went with my instinct as I really couldn't get any leverage with out a lift. Basically as tight as I could get them using a breaker bar.

Now you can go ahead and torque the mounts down. I used two ratchets to hold the bolt and tighten the nut. I tightened them till I could see them shrink, then backed off a quarter turn.

Now get the hell out from under there and shower already, you stink!

[danewilson77]

Nice. Shall I move to DIY?

[Hornung418]

Yeah, just make that last post into a thread for reference. I'll add some pics to that when I get a chance this week, and further review the choice I made.

[danewilson77]

If you make the thread.....just title one....I can move it over there....or.....you can do it.

[Ryans323i]

Very nice Justine. Glad you got that handled.

[danewilson77]

Very nice Justine.....

;rofl

Sent from Williamsburg, VA USA

[johnrando]

Nice!