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So my indy mechanic mentioned that my transmission mount needed replacing. Not until then had I even noticed anything wrong. But sure enough there was a subtle thunk when starting from rest, and the test where you hold on the brakes, put it in drive, and give it a little gas definitely showed a reproducible thunk. How to determine which mount is faulty beats me, but I just trusted his judgement. As it turns out, the mount was broken in two !
Replacement was pretty easy. I jacked the car at the front center, held a small piece of wood (1 ft square) under the tranny/engine join section, and put an axle stand UPSIDE DOWN beneath this. That is, the four feet of the axle stand were not on the ground, but against the wood; the top of the axle stand was on the pavement. (This helped distribute the load more evenly over the surface that I cared more about.) Holding this in place I lowered the car gradually until the axle stand was supporting most of the engine's weight. How did I know ? Just sort of guessed, really, but when I began loosening the two bolts that hold the old engine mount to the chassis, I made sure there was not any weight pulling downward on the bolts; i.e., once loosened a few turns, they should turn easily.
Normally, you're supoposed to remove the tranny mount *and* the attached bracket from the tranny itself. I did not do this. As others have pointed out, there is a piece of hard A/C tubing running direcly in front of the most inaccessible bolt. I found it easier to leave the bracket attached to the tranny, and instead remove the two bolts that hold the tranny mount to the bracket (sooner or later you've gotta remove these anyways...). To do this, I used a 16mm socket on a 10-12" extender bar. Working from above the car, it's possible to see one of the bolt heads, and there's room (barely) to work the ratchet wrench into place and crack the bolt loose. Before removing the lower bolt completely, I used it as a reference to access the upper (*not visible*) bolt about 2" higher up. If you know where it is, it's really not so hard to get a socket on it either. My car is fairly crusty down below, but thankfully all these bolts cracked loose without too much persuasion, and the threads were clean and strong. So I had no qualms about reusing them. Assembly, in this case, really was the reverse of removal. I lightly snugged the mount to the chassis, put the backet-to-mount bolts in firmly w/ LockTite, and then removed, LockTited, and replaced the mount-to-chassis bolts. These lower bolts pass through an elongated hole, so this order helps get the alignment right. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the plastic splash guard had to removed -- this went back on as well ;-}
I've driven it a little, and that thunk is gone. The thunk test (whatever it's called) produces no detectable sound/motion at all. And I'm sure its all mental, but the car feels a little more lively starting from rest.
Afterwards, I (finally) put my permanent tags on, which means I've had the car for close to 60 days. Wow, she's coming together very nicely. Thanks to all the help from this forum !
Jeff
posted by 205.170....
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