Engine Mount – UnderstandYourCar

Engine mounts aren’t the “sexiest” part on a vehicle – but you’d notice just how important they are if they failed the next time that you stepped on the gas pedal. Responsible for locking down your engine in place even when you goose the gas, engine mounts are the main thing corralling and containing all the power of your engine and keeping it in place while it distributes that power to the rest of your drivetrain. Never forget that every time you step on the gas (every single time) your engine wants to do nothing more than to twist, torque, and pop itself off of your engine mounts and get free. These things are a huge piece of the puzzle! This is why it’s so important to learn how to repair engine mounts that have started to show signs of wear and tear. If they bust or if they fail your vehicle is going to be in for a world of hurt (and you’re probably going to be looking at a really expensive fix). Let’s jump right in! How Bad is Your Engine Mount? The first thing you need to do is visually inspect your engine mounts to better assess wear and tear and to figure out if they really need to be replaced or not. You want to be looking for obvious signs of damage or compromise. We are talking about cracks, chips, rust, loose bolts, or anything like that. You’ll also want to see if engine fluids and oils have been leaking all over the motor mount. If there’s any corrosion building up on the motor mounts. Or if the nuts and bolts that hold the amount in place are starting to be compromised, too. If you notice any obvious signs of damage it’s a good idea to replace the whole mounting system completely – and that’s what we shine a light on below. How to Repair Engine Mount This project is (relatively) easy, should take you about three hours from start to finish, and doesn’t require any real specialized tools – aside from a quality floor jack. You will want to have a covered space to work in (if possible) and you need to be sure that your vehicle is completely level before you start tinkering with anything. Check for Clearance The very first thing you need to do when you are getting ready to tackle this project is to pop open the hood and make sure you have clearance against your firewall before you start to raise the engine itself. You don’t want to tear radiator hoses. You don’t want to bend air conditioning lines. And you don’t want to bust or crack your distributor, that’s for sure. Remove anything that needs to be removed so that you can comfortably lift your engine as you release your mounts and you’ll be in a much better spot. Always Use Blocks with Your Jack Next, you want to maneuver your floor jack into position squarely under the center of your engine block – but you also want to make sure that you have at least two or three decent sized chunks of wood (two by sixes or two by eights work well) between the jack and the engine block itself. DO NOT jack up your engine without these pieces of wood in place. DO NOT jack up your engine directly by the oil pan, either. Without distributing the weight of the engine across these pieces of wood you’ll inevitably end up doing a lot of damage to your engine block than you would have otherwise. The same is true if you try to jack your engine up from the oil pan. Your jack will punch right through and you’ll be in for a world of hurt. Loosen Your Bolts After you get your jack in position (just snug, not having tried to lift anything yet) you’ll want to loosen the engine from your mounting bolts. Get a quality ratchet set (almost always with an extension) and just get everything good and loose. You don’t want to back them completely off of the threads just yet, but you want enough room to be able to move your engine up. After loosening up the mounting bolts on top of your engine you’ll want to slide underneath your vehicle and loosen the mount to frame bolts, too. These ones you can take completely off (setting them aside separately) before popping back up and removing the top bolts that you loosened earlier. Set those aside as well. Begin (SLOWLY) Jacking Up Your Engine Now is the time to slowly – very slowly – bringing your engine up with the jack, just enough to get clearance to remove the engine mount itself. You don’t need to go to the sky with this. You don’t need to go any higher than to comfortably get that motor mount out of position. Slow and steady wins the race here. Pre-Thread Your Mount-to-Frame Bolts After replacing your new motor mount components (making sure to transfer heat shields and drip shields, as necessary) you’ll be able to pre-thread the mount-to-frame bolts on the bottom of your engine to help things go a little smoother. This’ll kind of guide your engine back into place as you bring it back down and will eliminate a lot of headache and hassle. After you get the threads all lined up simply snug nuts on these bolts (without sending them home just yet). Slowly Bring the Engine Back Home Slowly – slowly – bring your engine back down into place. Don’t go crazy. Don’t go fast. Just bring that thing down, little bit at a time, until the engine is sitting squarely on its mounts again. Bolt Everything Back Down From here, all you have to do is bolt down the motor mount components (the top and bottom of your engine) – taking the time to make sure they are tightened to spec. If you don’t have this information in your owner manual you can jump online and find it pretty easily. Make sure to tighten to spec, though. You don’t want to go too tight (putting stress on these critical components), but you definitely don’t want to be too loose to where you have your engine bouncing around and damaging your brand-new mounts, either. Closing Thoughts And there you have it – everything you need to know about how to replace engine mounts all on your own! The project is really pretty simple and straightforward (something everyone can do with a little time and a little patience), but it is kind of tedious and can become frustrating. If that’s starting to happen for you it’s not a bad idea to take a break, reassess, and then get back after it. The last thing you want to do is bust a bolt or cause more damage to these core components that needs to be fixed, too!