Wingnut
Top Post Dawg
Many of you know already, but here is what happened. While driving home from work, I was accelerating hard from 1st to 2nd gear. Then I heard a klunck and the whole car started shaking. The passenger side engine mount had let go. Not the usual suspect (the two top bolts that connect the upper mount to the lower mount). It was the bolts that hold the mount to the engine. There are 3 mounting points. One was broken on the block & the other 2 bolts just sheared off. I think the broken piece on the block was broken from my previous accident last year, leaving the remaining two left holding the engine? And with my higher than stock torque /images/graemlins/wink.gif, the remaining two could not hold it?
Here is what a dropped engine looks like:
Here is the broken mounting point on the block (yellow arrow):
The other two mounting points were intact, but the bolts were broken off inside:
Given the location of the broken bolts, I couldn't get an electric drill in the tight engine compartment. I was going to rent an air compressor & use a smaller air drill, but while at the Home Depot tool rental section, I found this nifty drill:
It was certainly more heavy duty than I needed, but was only $15 to rent instead of $25 for the air compressor, so I gave it a try:
It fit in there perfectly and made quick work of the broken bolt. I only had to drill it once & a small easyout took it out on the first try:
The rag was there to stop shavings from falling into the timing belt. I didn't catch all of them, so I used an extendable magnet to retrieve the lost shavings from down in the timing belt:
The lower bolt was a little harder to remove. After trying several different easyouts, I couldnt get the broken piece of bolt to budge. I had to buy a better (stronger) style, but still needed heat to get it to budge. Luckily, it was in a very accessable area through the wheel well. Here is my high tech torch kit that I used:
Laugh all you want, it got yhe job done /images/graemlins/tongue.gif:
Here are the two extracted bolt pieces with their respective removal tools (the small one was bent trying to get the bottom bolt out). It worked fine for the upper one:
I have yet to receive my new mount, so I will update the story when I put it back together. I also hope to have a fabricated mounting point for that broken third mounting position. Stay tuned.
Here is what a dropped engine looks like:
Here is the broken mounting point on the block (yellow arrow):
The other two mounting points were intact, but the bolts were broken off inside:
Given the location of the broken bolts, I couldn't get an electric drill in the tight engine compartment. I was going to rent an air compressor & use a smaller air drill, but while at the Home Depot tool rental section, I found this nifty drill:
It was certainly more heavy duty than I needed, but was only $15 to rent instead of $25 for the air compressor, so I gave it a try:
It fit in there perfectly and made quick work of the broken bolt. I only had to drill it once & a small easyout took it out on the first try:
The rag was there to stop shavings from falling into the timing belt. I didn't catch all of them, so I used an extendable magnet to retrieve the lost shavings from down in the timing belt:
The lower bolt was a little harder to remove. After trying several different easyouts, I couldnt get the broken piece of bolt to budge. I had to buy a better (stronger) style, but still needed heat to get it to budge. Luckily, it was in a very accessable area through the wheel well. Here is my high tech torch kit that I used:
Laugh all you want, it got yhe job done /images/graemlins/tongue.gif:
Here are the two extracted bolt pieces with their respective removal tools (the small one was bent trying to get the bottom bolt out). It worked fine for the upper one:
I have yet to receive my new mount, so I will update the story when I put it back together. I also hope to have a fabricated mounting point for that broken third mounting position. Stay tuned.
