Pictorial: Repair Engine Mount in Place

Alex Wogamott (MOjetta)and I were putting a timing belt back onto an ALH engine. One of the last functions is tightening the 12 x 1.5 x 70 bolts that hold the body and engine mount together. The front one strips. UGH!

Normally, that means removing the body mount, jacking the engine up and down to get the three engine mounting bolts out, replacing the engine mount ($120) and the engine mount bolts ($20). There is also a long wait while you get parts when you should be driving down the road.

Here is the fix:

First, make sure that the stripped engine mount hole is evenly spaced inside the body mount, like this. The other engine mount bolt will hold the two mounts together for the procedure.(click on pics to enlarge):

Drill out the existing hole with a 31/64" drill bit. Be careful and go slowly. Expect the drill bit to be grabby. Drill till you bottom the drill in the existing hole.

Now, here is the trick.. The tap ALMOST fits into the motor mount. The tap is a special Recoil four-flute tap, which can fit inside the motor mount. A 3/8" extension can be used to drive the tap and get the tap handle high enough to get it clear of the motor.

Work the tap onto the top of the hole in the engine mount, square it up and work carefully until the BODY MOUNT has been tapped. You'll have a few threads on each side of the engine mount. Drive the tap into the damaged hole. Use grease or tapping fluid.

Get out the Recoil threading tool and a Recoil insert. The insert will follow the threads that are in the body mount. Note that the tang is down. Also, note that I have previously covered the timing belt with a shop towel to keep chips and debris out of the belt.

Drive the Recoil threads in with the special driver until the threads are about one complete thread inside of the engine mount. Break off the tang and remove the tang.

Clean up the area. Reuse the same bolt you just had used to strip that engine mount hole. Just make sure that the bolt threads are clean of aluminum.

I use 70 Ft. Lbs. torque for the large engine mounting bolts.

The whole repair process takes about 15-30 minutes and saves about $140 and days of wait.

I have the 12 x 1.5mm recoil kits in stock.

Frank,
Thanks for the pictorial.

After seeing some of these engine mount threads fail while driving several weeks or months after the timing belt was done, I checked around on this site and found out about TIME-SERTS.

They make an insert that is fully 30 mm long, intended for repairing Honda gasser stripped head bolt holes, that works perfectly in this application. I use these inserts rather than the standard length ones.

I now put these in preventively, as they would be much harder to install in place with the lip and countersinking required for this type insert.

One driving force behind this approach was that TurbineWhine reported that he sensed a Heli-Coil job that he did on one shifting or pulling the Heli-Coil during torquing. He did not trust the repair to hold, and later replaced the engine mount. At least this was my memory of the tale.

Several mechanics that I have talked to will use the original threads in the engine mount one more time - typically the first TB replacement. If they think the threads have been torqued twice already (preparing for the second TB replacement) they prefer not to use them again. I just go ahead and replace the threads with the TIME-SERTs.

Do you think there is much difference between the Heli-Coil and the RECOIL insert? What length is the insert?

Franko6 said:

One of the last functions is tightening the 12 x 1.5 x 70 bolts that hold the body and engine mount together.

Click to expand...

Frank: Thank you for yet another valuable contribution to this place!!! I was just wondering if you measure things differently from the other suppliers: I have these bolts listed as 12 x 1.5 x 65...

DanG144 said:

Several mechanics that I have talked to will use the original threads in the engine mount one more time - typically the first TB replacement. If they think the threads have been torqued twice already (preparing for the second TB replacement) they prefer not to use them again. I just go ahead and replace the threads with the TIME-SERTs.

Click to expand...

Dan: How hard-and-fast is this guideline? I'll be doing the 4th timing belt on our 2003 soon... Should I replace the bracket (lower mount) on principle ?? (I have had a spare sitting around for a while - actually, since the 2nd timing belt change... I believe in being prepared...)

Yuri

Yuri, if you have a spare and you are in there doing a timing belt, I would say go for it. then have the threads in your old mount helicoiled or time serted and put it on the shelf for two belts down the road or to sell to someone in need.

Yuri, There is nothing hard and fast about it (depending on the mechanic). Just a guideliine for avoiding potential problems down the road.

My personal preference is to use three torque cycles as the judge for repairing the threads. That is the original torque at the factory, and two timing belts.

After my personal limit is reached, I put in one of my heli-coil mounts that I have on the shelf, and repair the mount I removed for the next customer.

I pick up spare mounts at the junkyard. They are used on many cars, and usually cost me ~ $25.

Yuri, I think the BRM bolt is 70mm compared to the ALH/ BEW 65mm. I think they figured out there was a problem of stripping bolts, so they gave it a few more threads.

DanG, I like the timeserts for many situations, but the Timeserts won't fit through the body mount. That is the reason for this particular situation to use the Recoils. I don't use the standard length Recoil inserts, which are 15mm, but a longer 24mm insert. That comes close to bottoming out in the hole.

If you know the thing is going to strip, I'm all for preemptive strikes. However, we had no history on this one with only 152k on the car. Really, it shouldn't have stripped. But you know how it goes.

Junkyarding is an option, but unfortunately around here, the pickin's are very slim in the Great VW Desert.

Nice write up Frank, only one correction, my username is MOJetta, not modiesel, lol...sure was nice to fix this in place as opposed to the alternative!

MOJetta said:

Nice write up Frank, only one correction, my username is MOJetta, not modiesel, lol...sure was nice to fix this in place as opposed to the alternative!

Click to expand...

Alex, I fixed it...

if it wasn't for this forum, I'd probably be driving a Toyota or a Subie. What a most excellent resource..................

Bringing back this message thread...

DanG144 said:

...TIME-SERTS.

They make an insert that is fully 30 mm long...

Click to expand...

I finally got around to trying to use the TimeSert kit I bought a while back...

I found that there isn't enough room at the bottom (for the tap to fully thread the hole) for a 30 mm insert and unless you're drilling through and extending the bottom of the support hole, how are you getting 30 mm long inserts in there? I had to grind a mm or so off the bottom (and also "smooth down" some of the threads) of the insert to get it to seat properly... What am I doing wrong? (I'm also thinking of buying some 24 mm inserts for the next time...)

Yuri