I’m in the process of replacing my motor mounts since I found them disintegrating all over the garage floor. I was already in the process of replacing the front bushings, so I completely dropped the subframe for easy access.

To my surprise, I found the oem aluminum arm, even though the failed mounts were aftermarket (previous owner) I didn’t know that was even an option until tonight.

But check out how bad the mounts were....

nothing on drivers side but air!


Passenger side wasn’t much better



What brand of mounts do y’all think these were? And what do you think happened to them?


Now for my question.

so I already have the IRP mounts ready to put in, but I didn’t know the car still had an aluminum arm. Is there anything I can do to install them w/o sourcing a steel replacement arm? The aluminum has a nub that sticks down, which would make the mounting surface quite small, and of course raise the engine height. I could grind it off flush, but I’m worried about how strong the arm will be.

Thoughts?

 

Oh and my homemade engine support beam haha

 

Personally, I'd source a steel arm...even if I had to buy a pair of them, and then have them milled 3/16". I'd also pull, clean and reseal the pan with a pan brace while I was doing that job . You've disturbed those bolts that run through the pan, and already done a lot of the work necessary to reseal the pan with the engine in the car.
After that you'll be able to get rid of that engine torque brace too.

 

Not sure which mounts those were. The only aftermarket mounts that would work with the aluminum arm are the Himni mounts. I think the IRP mounts would be a better way to go.

The Full Function mounts are super nice but pricey. They do replace the arms with all new arms and are lighter than stock. Probably the best designed/engineered setup out there but they aren't cheap.

If your oil pan isn't leaking (or not leaking much) I would leave it. It's a bitch to clean and re-seal a pan in the car and 9 times out of 10 it still leaks.

Dale

 

Well, I got impatient last night and decided to grind off the nub on the aluminum arm so I could go ahead and install the IRP mounts quickly, rather than source any other parts.








Turned out really good actually. I’ll just have to wait and see if the arm continues to hold up. It’s really not that huge of a job to drop the subframe in the future, now that Ive actually done it. So I’ll just replace the aluminum arm if it ever actually fails.



i don’t think I disturbed any of the pan bolts? I never messed with the mount arms

 

I would have (I did, actually, but I was in the process of rebuild anyway) just source the steel mount. That was a good put from Sgtblue in that you should have just re-sealed the oil pan while you were down there. Cheap insurance. Now, your engine holding rigging - Well, I would't have gone under there.
I hope you put your bushing heat shield back, or you'll be back under there in no time. Something tells me you'll be back under there soon either way, though.

 

Im sure the steel arm is a better option. But I decided not to wait any longer since the car had already been down a few weeks from other projects.

The pan doesn’t appear to be leaking, but there is a leak somewhere above it. Lots of components have oil residue on them.

Definitely installed the passenger side shield.

The support beam was more than sufficient for the weight involved. I’d say the weakest link was the engine hook itself.