samnavy

iTrader: (7)

Yup, decided today was the day. Drivers side was a piece of cake with the header off and nothing in the way. It's up on 4 jacks now, so I put the jack under the engine and gave just the slightest amount of pressure to take the weight off the mounts. Then I unfastened the nut on the bottom... once loose, gave another pump on the jack to be sure there was no pressure on the mount... then undid the three bolts on the block and pulled the thing out. It was cracked pretty bad, see pic. Reinstall was easy. There's only one way the new mounts will line up in the bracket, easy.

The passenger side was a little more of a pain. Part of the starter bracket is integrated with the mount, to it was a little more tricky to get the thing out. Then the reinstall was a pain... you can't see very well in there to line up the holes, and I have to jack the engine up until the tranny was touching the firewall to get it all to slide back in. The up/down/up/down/up/down until I managed to get all the bolts to line up.

We'll see how much better it feels when it's on the road again.

turbored

I did my mounts this weekend too. man getting everything lined up was such a PITA, but when i took it for a test drive, it was all worth it!

spike

The nice thing about the MS motormounts is that it drops the engine a 1/4 inch lower versus the mounts that came stock with the car.

miatamania

iTrader: (9)

ouch...she ought to run better ...I just left the start mount off as I couldn't get it back in...bad idea you think?

turbored

i had a hellava time getting the starter mount lined up properly too. Had to remove the mount completely, start the starter side first, get a couple of threads in, then start the motor mount side. bleh.

miatamania

iTrader: (9)

hmmm...is it that necessary? lol, I might have to go back and put mine on...it was really loose when I removed it...so..?

samnavy

iTrader: (7)

The passenger side was a little harder due to the starter bracket, but not REALLY HARD. I just used the jack to raise/lower/raise/lower/wiggle/push/raise/lower/etc... I got out a little mirror-on-a-stick so I could see when things were perfectly lined up. I did one bolt at a time. The first one that lined up was the front lower, then the rear, then the front upper/starter mount.

I also had the driver side bolt that connects the mount to the frame disconnected. I backed off the nut completely so when I jacked up the engine, it came up even.

One piece of advice, don't put the bottom nuts on until both are lined up. The higher the motor is, the more room you have on the pass side.