Need help (and therapy) for NB2 motor mounts R&R
 

Whoever designed these god damn four bolt brackets needs to be SHOT

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e81631cdec.jpg

The Passenger side was pretty terrible and i had to remove it towards the front of the car after wiggling and spinning it around a lot.
the Driver side is SADISTIC. it's getting jammed against the engine extremely hard if i jack it too far up or let it down too far. i tried using a pry bar to shove the engine out of the way and that does free it up, but only to wiggle a little, i CANNOT get the threaded rod out of that damn cup
this is seriously making me regret buying a miata. motor mounts in my e39 bmw are far easier.

ANY help is appreciated, including pointing and laughing that i'm getting so mad over motor mounts

No need to laugh, they're a pain even on a lift. Have you removed the header? Once you do that they're not so bad.

have not removed the exhaust header but the way in which it's stuck, the exhaust header isn't the issue?

I partially lowered the subframe on mine, which got it out in a jiffy. I loosened the opposite side and backed the fasteners almost all the way off on the side with the difficult mount, which gave enough extra clearance to rotate the mount and unbolt the two halves in location. It's then easy to take the separated parts out.

Install of the mounts is simple due to the different design.

my concern with anything subframe related is finding all the bolts to loosen then remembering to put them all back with the right torque amounts, not sure how many you had to loosen though.
do you have a diagram showing all the bolts i'll need to loosen?

made a discovery while screaming with rage.
shifting my jack over to the passenger side, and swinging the engine that way, clears up enough room to pop the mount out and wiggle it around. Not enough room to remove it mind you.
tried to take off the inner bolt to disassemble the mount but of course it's on there TIGHT. this is on top of it being almost impossible to find a position where the mount won't just spin when trying to loosen the bolt.
i've drenched it in pb blaster and i'll try again tomorrow, hopefully borrowing a friend's impact driver because i really want to just smash the shit out of this mount right now.

I am in a bad mood, your struggles amuse me.

Thank you, and good luck.

Confused, but might be the beer. Take it out metal cup and all. Then take off the rubber dildo of death. To install a large pry bar and big hammer help. They'll kiss it in place. Make sure to bang it hard as the rubber didlo of death likes to get stuck.

Google will help you find the subframe bolts. They are easy to access and you don't have to completely remove them. From memory, there are 4 per side - 2 near the spring perch and 2 where the sub frame attaches to the body near the frame rail. You need to support the body on stands, the engine on a jack, with a second jack to support the subframe.

COMPLETED.
some notes;
-didn't need to lower the subframe
-i was able to loosen the inner mount bolt with the mount and bracket still trapped up in the car. Took a lot of spinning and wiggling to get the bracket into a position where it wouldn't spin while i loosened the nut, and i had to put a LOT of force on it to crack it loose. In fact the only reason it got loose i suspect is because i drenched it in PB blaster the night before.
-with the nut off i removed the rubber from the bracket and took both out of the car separately. prepped the new mount then put each piece back up in the car and re assembled it all in-situ. Definitely awkward but not tough
-tightened the nut on the other side so the mount and bracket would hold relatively still. made sure at this point that the mount was fully seated in the cup
-lowered the engine a little to line the bolt holes up. This took some time since you have to align the holes on the bracket with the holes on the engine -EXACTLY- to thread them in.
-With all the bolts threaded and almost tightened i let the engine down, removed the jack, then tightened everything all the way

driving around i'm not noticing any improvement in terms of shifter movement under acceleration. it still moves a bit back and to the right (about 6 milimeters total distance under acceleration), however the idle doesn't rattle the cabin like it used to which is really nice

also i put copper anti seize on -everything- to make it easier to disassemble next time

I did this job last weekend as part of my TSE manifold install since it's easier with the manifold and turbo removed.

I read everything on "the internetz" about this job, including this thread, but couldn't get the bloody bracket out on my own, I just couldn't get enough clearance to pivot the bracket.

Since I was replacing the OEM engine mount with a NitroDann one and the OEM version wasn't co-operating, it's fate was sealed and it gave me an excuse to "need" an angle grinder.
Unfortunately there were way too many sparks in the confined space and I couldn't really see what was going on (at least I have an angle grinder now!).
The Dremel was way too slow (especially when you keep breaking the disks when bumping anything during the cut).
I ended up drilling 2 rows of progressively larger holes to tear the engine mount bracket back and allow me to drill and hack the shit out of the bushing to give me the extra clearance I needed.
The MazdaSpeed bushings are incredibly tough - I had to drill into them, hack the crap out of them with tin snips, then use pliers to rip out the chunks.

I removed about 2/3 of the bushing and the bracket came out quite easily with the help of the wood used to lever the engine.

I now wonder if most of my issues were due to the fact that the Mazdaspeed bushing hadn't deteriorated enough which is why most people do this job.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...91f26c4571.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...225651c441.jpg

NitroDann's bracket mounted:
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d3f51542ac.jpg

Here's the rear of two brackets side by side so that you can see how much more difficult it is to remove an NB2 bracket (NitroDann's bracket mounts are similar to OEM NA and NB1):
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e7832d77e6.jpg
You can see how bulky the lower arm is on the OEM mount and that you need a lot of clearance to manoeuvre it.
I suspect that you're supposed to be able to pull the mount back a little, rotate the bracket clockwise, pivot it and pull it out in an upward motion.

From an engineering point of view, the OEM bracket is incredibly sturdy but from a maintenance point of view it REALLY sucks.

That was a sh*t of a job which is now done and out of the way - changing the bushing will be simple in the future!

...what on earth? Why did you have to drill into the crash cup? It should have just stayed with the mount as you pulled the entire thing out.

I couldn't get enough engine clearance to get/spin the OEM NB2 mount out and I tried everything - destroying the rubber bushing gave me just enough room to get the bastard out.
The only way to destroy the bushing was to hack off the enclosing cup.
After several hours of trying to get it out, hacking the shit out of it was very therapeutic.

I had as much trouble getting the old mounts out when i did it on my previous 01. Was the hardest "easy job" as far Miata goes. Broke 2 straps trying to position the engine after removing the header