Unfortunately most of them were spent trying to replace the rear engine mount. Id bought a set of 3 heavy duty mounts from CGB. The passengers side front was an easy swap, and upon taking the old one off you can see in the photo, the mount had already sheered in 2, so it was a good job i was replacing it. Here we have 2 of the old mounts and one shiny new one.
The rear wasnt so easy. There are 3 bolts holding the mounts on. 2 attach to the chasis, the other to the engine/gearbox. The drivers side bolt was hard to get to, in the end the only way was from under the car and up under the exhaust tunnel, using a 16mm socket on a rachett. Slowly slowly was the way forward here. Once that was undone, you can get the other bolt and the nut holding it to the engine from inside the engine bay. Access would have been easier by removing the L shaped downpipe but i didnt do that yet.
Once undone, a jack under the gearbox will lift the engine up enough to get the mount out.
Replacing them is the tricky bit as the bolts are strange ones with half the thread cut out on the ends - presumably to help clear the threads as you tighten them up. What I did was screw them back in from under the car using some 3 in 1 oil on the threads to help clear the threads on the nuts up (nuts are welded to the chasis on the underside). Once I did that, I manually screwed in the drivers side (the hardest one) first from the top, making sure it wasnt cross threading as these are notoriously easy to cross thread. Once that one was done, it took some jiggling/brute force and raising/lowering of the jack to get the passengers side holes lined up for the next bolt. Once that was in, it was a simple job of torquing everything up to the recommended amount. I also stuck some loctite on the bolts to help them stay tight.
Top is the passengers side front mount and bottom is the hard to get to rear mount.
I just need to replace the drivers side front one next, but will do that once I turn the car around to get to the other side of it.
Whilst I was at it, I removed the front shock. This is a SPAX gas adjustable one which hasnt done many miles on the car, fitted with Jamex lowered springs. It just needs a good clean up and it should look like new. Ive just checked the top mounts and cleaned/painted them up.
I will keep it off the car until ive done the welding & finished with stuff under the passenger wheel arch to give me better access.
The only other job ive done this week is to tidy up the battery compartment. Luckily the battery tray was solid although a bit rusty. So a good wirebrush up, acid etch primer & some satin black industrial spray paint and it looks much better. I topped it off with a new heavy duty VARTA battery. The wiring under the bonnet looks worse than I remember, someone has taken a live feed from the battery & fed it around to the alternator. It looks like it might be something to do with the perc fan - so when I ditch that and replace the alternator/fan/rad I will look to see if i can clean the wiring up.
I had to remove the stock intercooler to get to the engine mount, and will be removing/ditching the stock rad/oil cooling system to replace them with new better ones. Im now starting to think about there the intercooler pipes will go. Ive a double capacity "stock" style intercooler I can use, or a front mount one. Im steering towards the front mount as that will free up some engine bay space and allow more cold air onto the air filter. The normal route people seem to take it to feed the intercooler pipe from the top of the car, straight forward and over the top of the alternator. It looks like i may have to move the radiator to the left slightly, or alter the front bodywork of the car slightly to allow clearance for the pipe. Ive also seen problems where people have had the pipes arching on the alternator with sparks, so i need to bare that in mind.
Quick photo here of the filthy and worn out engine bay. It hasnt seem an oily rag in about 10 years...
Be nice when its finished.
Finally, as im off out for the day, a couple of photos of my other toys in the garage which im having to work around...
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