Ok, so I spent quite a bit of time under the car today...

I have been fighting with the motor mounts on the car for 2 weeks now, trying to get the old mounts out and the new poly mounts in. Here's the way you do it:

Start by pulling the engine mounts and tranny mount out of the car, jacking up the motor with a 2x4 on the jack so that you don't dent the oil pan.

Then try to bolt the new motor mounts in, only to realize that the power steering pump has a bracket that needs to be bolted to the motor mounts as well. So, now, the motor mount has to come back off and be reinstalled with the bracket. In doing so, you push some grease/grime that's on the side of the block into the threads, thus causing binding.

Time to break out the tap & die set; this allows the threads a better bite and no binding.

In trying to get the bolt through the bracket and the motor mount, you realize that the bracket that mounts to the power steering pump is bent.

So you try to loosen the power steering pump bracket enough to get flex enough to put the bolt through the bracket, through the motor mount, and into the block without cross-threading. And that's when you hear a crack, and the power steering pump falls against the dampener. Seems that the previous owner cracked the power steering pump mounting bracket, and just covered it up with paint to hide the cracks.

So you decide to remove the power steering pump, which involves loosening the alternator and sliding it out of the way to remove the power steering pump.

Once this is done, you can NOW install the new motor mounts properly, and lower the engine back down to put the bolts through the frame into the mounts themselves.

Between this and the power steering valve which gave us trouble, we were under the car for several hours.

 

HOLY COW you got one of the easy ones all kidding aside its best to find the problem while working on the car then to have the bracket fail while driving down the road and having the belt fly off and cuting your radiator hose in half and dumping your fluids down the interstate.......... wait this happened to me i feel your pain

 

Well, I'm hoping that I'll find a bracket at the auto swap meet tomorrow...As it is, we also need to replace the belt for the power steering pump and the alternator, as upon further inspection we found cracks and breaks in the belt. It's only a matter of time before it would have broke.

 

Why is all the pain and suffering we go through so amusing!

What makes us rage one day makes us laugh the next.
and laugh even more so when we hear of somebody else doing the same thing.

Time for