I had to replace both motor mounts a little while ago. For various reasons, I didn't get the large, through bolt hooked up. This weekend I wanted to get this done and found that I couldn't line the bolt holes up no matter how much I raised and lowered the engine and tranny. Is it possible that I will need to use shims? I used the Energy Systems poly mounts if this makes any difference.

Thanks goodness that I have so little power. Otherwise, this might be dangerous.

 

Did you tighten the bolts on the engine side already?

 

Is the transmission mount connected? (i.e. is the transmission mount connecting the transmission to the crossmember mounting bracket?)

When you first mount the engine/bellhousing/tansmission stack, you want the transmission end of the stack to be "loose." With this end loose, you should be able to bolt the engine motor mounts to the frame. With the engine motor mounts bolted in, it should then be posible to correctly bolt the transmission crossmember mount into place.

When my SB motor mounts slid onto the frame support brackets, the transmission mount holes just lined up with the crossmember support bracket.

 

Yes I did. Should I loosen these and try that way? I did think to do this but it felt like cheating.

 

No. I disconected this when I started trying to align the bolt holes with two jacks; one under the engine pan and one under the tranny.

 

The only way I could get mine to work was to loosen the three bolts going into the engine on each mount as far as you can without the bolts falling out. It'll allow you to "jiggle" the mount around.

Then you should be able to slide the mount-to-frame bolt in pretty easy at this point.

Then slowly start tightening the mount-to-engine bolts a little at a time so that everything tightens up evenly.

Thats how I did mine and it worked like a champ

 

Yes, try that. Get all the bolts started including the frame then you can tighten.

 

Having just spent 2 weekends trying to get the Energy Suspension motor mounts mounted on my L48, I can tell you that it's not fun.

1) No, you don't need shims, but you do need that metal plate installed between the engine mount and the block.

2) Don't tighten down any of the bolts until all of the bolts are installed. This will allow a little bit of wiggle room.

3) A drift punch will do wonders at helping to shift the motor mounts to get holes aligned, more so than the bolts themselves will.

4) The transmission mount should be the last one to have the bolts installed.

5) NEVER, EVER do this install on a slope; gravity will shift the engine to all sorts of fun angles, especially back towards the rear of the car, perhaps a 1/16th of an inch, enough to where holes don't want to line up.

Those are just some of the tips I can offer with your install. With us, in order to get our power steering pump bracket to mount up so that we could install the 3rd bolt to the engine mount on the driver's side, we had to take the power steering pump completely off of the car, as well as remove the bracket holding the pump.

Turns out this was a blessing in disguise anyway, because it made it easier to install our power steering control valve that we'd bought. We also discovered a broken pump bracket that the previous owner had simply painted over after he broke it.