Replacing Front/Rear Motor Mount How-To
01-06-2004, 11:25 AM
#1
Senior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,003
Replacing Front/Rear Motor Mount How-To
Tools:
- 1 Jack
- 1 Jackstand (2 optional)
- 2-3 Feet of extentions
- Assortment of sockets (unknown sizes at this point)
Steps:
1) Lift and use a jack stand to support the drivers side wheel.
2) Take the wheel off.
3) Use the jack and support the engine from underneath.
4) Loosen and remove the 4 bolts on the crossmember.
5) Loosen the bolt on the front mount.
6) Loosen the bolt on the rear mount by using 2-3 feet of extensions.
7) Remove both bolts on both mounts and drop the crossmember with mounts.
8) Take mounts off of crossmember and replace with new mounts.
9) Installation is reverse of removal, but do not tighten anything until everything is situated in the correct position
There is a couple of things I need cleared up before these steps are final (added to the how-to's). This is a list of what I need from you guys:
1) List of all bolt sizes.
2) Confirmation that the above steps are correct, and not missing any vital steps
3) Any alternate ways to change them
- 1 Jack
- 1 Jackstand (2 optional)
- 2-3 Feet of extentions
- Assortment of sockets (unknown sizes at this point)
Steps:
1) Lift and use a jack stand to support the drivers side wheel.
2) Take the wheel off.
3) Use the jack and support the engine from underneath.
4) Loosen and remove the 4 bolts on the crossmember.
5) Loosen the bolt on the front mount.
6) Loosen the bolt on the rear mount by using 2-3 feet of extensions.
7) Remove both bolts on both mounts and drop the crossmember with mounts.
8) Take mounts off of crossmember and replace with new mounts.
9) Installation is reverse of removal, but do not tighten anything until everything is situated in the correct position
There is a couple of things I need cleared up before these steps are final (added to the how-to's). This is a list of what I need from you guys:
1) List of all bolt sizes.
2) Confirmation that the above steps are correct, and not missing any vital steps
3) Any alternate ways to change them
01-08-2004, 02:44 PM
#6
You mention putting only the drivers side on a jackstand. I would jack the front and put jackstands on both sides. YOu only need to remove the drivers wheel though.
Engine jacking for support is +/-. I didn't and the engine did't drop a whole lot.
The trickiest part of the whole operation is when you are replacing the crossmember with new mounts and you are trying to line up and insert the bolts that go through them (mounts). I attached the front mount first and with the bolts holding the front and rear of the crossmembers threaded only very loosely so as to support it, I then used a jack on the engine to line up the rear mount bolt. It's hard to get mounts lined up perfectly, but once it's close, you can gently tap the bolts in with a hammer. There is no best way to do this...it's one of those things where trial and error come into play. This definitely took up the most time.
Then, before you fully tighten the 4 front and rear crossmember bolts, you should place a jack under the crossmember and jack it up into place, otherwise the bolts may not thread completely and it will almost seem like they are stripped.
I've heard it takes 1/2 hour but it took me closer to 1 1/2 hours--definitely would be faster the 2nd time around. No question the effort will pay dividends in driving feel. Vibration? Hardly anything (with PU filled stock mounts).
Engine jacking for support is +/-. I didn't and the engine did't drop a whole lot.
The trickiest part of the whole operation is when you are replacing the crossmember with new mounts and you are trying to line up and insert the bolts that go through them (mounts). I attached the front mount first and with the bolts holding the front and rear of the crossmembers threaded only very loosely so as to support it, I then used a jack on the engine to line up the rear mount bolt. It's hard to get mounts lined up perfectly, but once it's close, you can gently tap the bolts in with a hammer. There is no best way to do this...it's one of those things where trial and error come into play. This definitely took up the most time.
Then, before you fully tighten the 4 front and rear crossmember bolts, you should place a jack under the crossmember and jack it up into place, otherwise the bolts may not thread completely and it will almost seem like they are stripped.
I've heard it takes 1/2 hour but it took me closer to 1 1/2 hours--definitely would be faster the 2nd time around. No question the effort will pay dividends in driving feel. Vibration? Hardly anything (with PU filled stock mounts).
. I will wait for Daves responce and then post.
01-16-2004, 10:19 PM
#10
Not DAVEB the parts guy
Join Date: Aug 2000
Posts: 8,555
Holy Lord this isn't an easy job. It only took me 45 minutes to drop the cross member and mounts, but getting everything back together took me nearly 2.5 hours. The problem is that nothing lines up perfectly. My bet is that the rubber in the mounts isn't formed perfectly so whne you reinstall everything, things can be off by 1/8" which is enough to make this job a pita. I had everything in place except one bolt on the front mount where it connects to cross member (more on that later). Here are the tools it took me to get these SOB front and rear engine mounts in place:
1) floor jack
2) two 17mm short sockets
3) ~2.5' of 1/2 extensions
4) 1/2" rachet
5) 18" 1/2" breaker bar
6) jack stands
7) 10mm socket and 1/4" rachet
8) "Bottle" jack http://shop.store.yahoo.com/rodi/mvpbottlejacks.html
9) torque wrench
10) penetrating oil
11) anti-seize
After f-ing around for 3 hours, this is how I made it work.
Installing new engine mounts:
1) Jack the car up, secure with jackstands, and remove the driver's side wheel
2) spray penetrating oil on the bolts and nuts that connect the mount to the engine
3) Using the breaker bar, 2.5' of extension, and a 17mm socket, feed everything through the driver's side wheel well to the rear engine mount bolt and loosen the bolt. This takes some odd leverage and if you're not a decently strong guy, you might be screwed. Also, the amount of extension greatly reduces you're the torque you can generate. You also have to careful and keep the socket on the bolt because the last thing you want to do is strip the head of the bolt. Once the bolt breaks loose, just loosen it, but don't remove. On the rear mount, there is only a bolt. The nut is welded to the "ear" of mount that's connected to the engine block.
4) Using the 10mm socket, remove the two bolts that attach the splash guard to the cross member. Pull the guards down out of the way best you can. They don't need to be removed.
5) Go to the front mount. Using the breaker with a 17mm socket and a rachet with a 17mm socket, break the bolt and nut loose that attaches the mount to the engine. Again, this takes some serious muscle because the leverage is odd and the bolt is on there with ~95 ft/lbs. Again, just loosen this bolt.
6) Take a piece of 2X4 wood and the bottle jack and place the wood between the bottle jack and transmission casing. Jack the tranny up ~1/4". What you are doing is supporting the engine and tranny.
7) Using the breaker bar and a 17mm socket, remove the two front and rear chassis to cross member bolts. Keep the front bolts seperate from the rear bolts BECAUSE THEY ARE DIFFERENT! Something that caught my attention was that these bolts, both front and rear, were only on with about 30 ft/lbs of torque. My Chilton's and FSM both said these bolts are suppose to be torqued to 95 ft/lbs. I'm a bit perplexed at why they were so loose.
8) Once the cross member to chassis bolts are out, wiggle out the mount to engine bolts and nuts, and drop the cross member. It will weigh about ~25lbs.
9) With 17mm sockets on both the breaker bar and rachet, remove the bolts and nuts that connect the mounts to the cross member. There are four of them (two for each mount). Again, leverage of tough and those suckers are torqued to 95 ft/lbs.
10) Install the new mounts to the cross member. Put some anti-seize on the nuts and torque the rear mount bolts/nuts to 75-95 ft/lbs. The reason you use anti-seize is to help the threads stay lubricated and you also get a more accurate torque reading. On the front mount just insert the FRONT bolt into the mount and put the nut (ant-seize it) on finger tight (ie only one of the two bolts on the front mount is attached to the cross member at this time).
11) Lift the cross member into place and slide the rear mount to engine bolt into place and tighten to ~40 ft/lbs.
12) Install the two rear cross member to chassis bolts so that they are slightly tight (~20 ft/lbs, anti-seize them).
13) Slide the front mount to engine bolt into place and finger tightening the nut (anti-seize it).
14) Install the two front cross member to chassis bolts so that they are slighty tight (~20 ft/lbs, anti-seize them).
15) Now the fun part. If your car was like mine, you'll notice that you will not be able to install that front mount to cross member bolt/nut (step 10) because the holes on the mount and cross member don't line up perfectly. Believe me, I tried every different way under the sun to make this work and what I did was the only option on my car. I removed the bottle jack from the tranny (tranny and engine are fully supported by the mounts now) and situated the bottle jack so that it was able to jack up the driver's side lower "ear" of the mount. I slowly jacked up and the mount and cross member holes lined up on that side. The bolt slide through, but now the other side the still wasn't completely lined up and bolt couldn't fully slide through. So I then took my floor jack and used it on the passenger side lower "ear" on the mount. With just some slight jacking, the holes lined up and the bolt slide through. I lowered the jacks and installed the nut (anti-seize it).
I have heard of guys having to enlarge the mount's holes to compensate for this lining up problem. To me, it wasn't an option. I was going to make it work the right way using wrong way methods :LOL:
16) Now all the bolts/nuts were in place and I began torquing all of them to ~77-95 ft/lbs as called for in the FSM. Seeing that the torque numbers are so high, it appears Nissan thinks that these bolts are very important. I suggest torqueing them right.
17) I reinstalled the 10mm splash guard bolts, put the tire back on, and lowered the car.
18) I started her and took her on a test drive and everything seemed fine. There was a little less vibration and 50% of the drivetrain "slop" was gone. The 7-year old mounts I removed weren't torn, but they were a bit softer than the OEM replacements I installed.
With what I know now, I probably could do this job in about 1.5 hours. Like I said, I tried mutliple ways of getting everything to line up, but no matter what, there was always a hole that wouldn't line up perfectly and let me slide the bolt through. I did all the adjusting and jacking on the front mount because it's easiest to get to manipulate. This method worked for my car, but I have no idea about anyone else's. I'm curious to how Nissan techs get everything to line up.
Good luck.
Dave
1) floor jack
2) two 17mm short sockets
3) ~2.5' of 1/2 extensions
4) 1/2" rachet
5) 18" 1/2" breaker bar
6) jack stands
7) 10mm socket and 1/4" rachet
8) "Bottle" jack http://shop.store.yahoo.com/rodi/mvpbottlejacks.html
9) torque wrench
10) penetrating oil
11) anti-seize
After f-ing around for 3 hours, this is how I made it work.
Installing new engine mounts:
1) Jack the car up, secure with jackstands, and remove the driver's side wheel
2) spray penetrating oil on the bolts and nuts that connect the mount to the engine
3) Using the breaker bar, 2.5' of extension, and a 17mm socket, feed everything through the driver's side wheel well to the rear engine mount bolt and loosen the bolt. This takes some odd leverage and if you're not a decently strong guy, you might be screwed. Also, the amount of extension greatly reduces you're the torque you can generate. You also have to careful and keep the socket on the bolt because the last thing you want to do is strip the head of the bolt. Once the bolt breaks loose, just loosen it, but don't remove. On the rear mount, there is only a bolt. The nut is welded to the "ear" of mount that's connected to the engine block.
4) Using the 10mm socket, remove the two bolts that attach the splash guard to the cross member. Pull the guards down out of the way best you can. They don't need to be removed.
5) Go to the front mount. Using the breaker with a 17mm socket and a rachet with a 17mm socket, break the bolt and nut loose that attaches the mount to the engine. Again, this takes some serious muscle because the leverage is odd and the bolt is on there with ~95 ft/lbs. Again, just loosen this bolt.
6) Take a piece of 2X4 wood and the bottle jack and place the wood between the bottle jack and transmission casing. Jack the tranny up ~1/4". What you are doing is supporting the engine and tranny.
7) Using the breaker bar and a 17mm socket, remove the two front and rear chassis to cross member bolts. Keep the front bolts seperate from the rear bolts BECAUSE THEY ARE DIFFERENT! Something that caught my attention was that these bolts, both front and rear, were only on with about 30 ft/lbs of torque. My Chilton's and FSM both said these bolts are suppose to be torqued to 95 ft/lbs. I'm a bit perplexed at why they were so loose.
8) Once the cross member to chassis bolts are out, wiggle out the mount to engine bolts and nuts, and drop the cross member. It will weigh about ~25lbs.
9) With 17mm sockets on both the breaker bar and rachet, remove the bolts and nuts that connect the mounts to the cross member. There are four of them (two for each mount). Again, leverage of tough and those suckers are torqued to 95 ft/lbs.
10) Install the new mounts to the cross member. Put some anti-seize on the nuts and torque the rear mount bolts/nuts to 75-95 ft/lbs. The reason you use anti-seize is to help the threads stay lubricated and you also get a more accurate torque reading. On the front mount just insert the FRONT bolt into the mount and put the nut (ant-seize it) on finger tight (ie only one of the two bolts on the front mount is attached to the cross member at this time).
11) Lift the cross member into place and slide the rear mount to engine bolt into place and tighten to ~40 ft/lbs.
12) Install the two rear cross member to chassis bolts so that they are slightly tight (~20 ft/lbs, anti-seize them).
13) Slide the front mount to engine bolt into place and finger tightening the nut (anti-seize it).
14) Install the two front cross member to chassis bolts so that they are slighty tight (~20 ft/lbs, anti-seize them).
15) Now the fun part. If your car was like mine, you'll notice that you will not be able to install that front mount to cross member bolt/nut (step 10) because the holes on the mount and cross member don't line up perfectly. Believe me, I tried every different way under the sun to make this work and what I did was the only option on my car. I removed the bottle jack from the tranny (tranny and engine are fully supported by the mounts now) and situated the bottle jack so that it was able to jack up the driver's side lower "ear" of the mount. I slowly jacked up and the mount and cross member holes lined up on that side. The bolt slide through, but now the other side the still wasn't completely lined up and bolt couldn't fully slide through. So I then took my floor jack and used it on the passenger side lower "ear" on the mount. With just some slight jacking, the holes lined up and the bolt slide through. I lowered the jacks and installed the nut (anti-seize it).
I have heard of guys having to enlarge the mount's holes to compensate for this lining up problem. To me, it wasn't an option. I was going to make it work the right way using wrong way methods :LOL:
16) Now all the bolts/nuts were in place and I began torquing all of them to ~77-95 ft/lbs as called for in the FSM. Seeing that the torque numbers are so high, it appears Nissan thinks that these bolts are very important. I suggest torqueing them right.
17) I reinstalled the 10mm splash guard bolts, put the tire back on, and lowered the car.
18) I started her and took her on a test drive and everything seemed fine. There was a little less vibration and 50% of the drivetrain "slop" was gone. The 7-year old mounts I removed weren't torn, but they were a bit softer than the OEM replacements I installed.
With what I know now, I probably could do this job in about 1.5 hours. Like I said, I tried mutliple ways of getting everything to line up, but no matter what, there was always a hole that wouldn't line up perfectly and let me slide the bolt through. I did all the adjusting and jacking on the front mount because it's easiest to get to manipulate. This method worked for my car, but I have no idea about anyone else's. I'm curious to how Nissan techs get everything to line up.
Good luck.
Dave
01-17-2004, 10:30 AM
#14
Not DAVEB the parts guy
Join Date: Aug 2000
Posts: 8,555
I forgot to mention that with the cross member and mounts removed, access to the exhaust manifold is actually quite good. I think installing headers wouldn't be a huge problem. Now the question is if these headers actually make the power they're suppose to.
Dave
Dave
01-17-2004, 03:10 PM
#15
¿Hablas Español?
Join Date: Oct 2001
Posts: 851
Yikes Dave - your reinstall sounds like a PITA! Due to some problems I was having with my car that I thought were mount related, I have swapped these things in and out 3 times. I think it took me and my buddy about 30 minutes, start to finish, the last time I did it.
However, I jack up the front of the car, use 2 jack stands, support the motor.
When you're taking out the center bolts in the mounts, jack up the motor a pump or two on the jack handle to take some pressure off of the center bolts.
Replacement is a piece of cake using this method too. Use the jack to position the motor where you need it.
Probably helps some that I have air tools but none of it is really all that hard to do. I replaced stock with homemade poly, poly back to stock and then stock back to poly filled. They all go in the same and with the same amount of effort.
However, I jack up the front of the car, use 2 jack stands, support the motor.
When you're taking out the center bolts in the mounts, jack up the motor a pump or two on the jack handle to take some pressure off of the center bolts.
Replacement is a piece of cake using this method too. Use the jack to position the motor where you need it.
Probably helps some that I have air tools but none of it is really all that hard to do. I replaced stock with homemade poly, poly back to stock and then stock back to poly filled. They all go in the same and with the same amount of effort.
01-19-2004, 05:42 PM
#16
Senior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,003
Yikes, after a bruised nail and cuts all over, I managed to change my mounts today. I had no problem at all with lining everything up...everything went up perfect. Only things that went wrong:
1) Front mount bolt was on so tight that my impact gun had difficulty...after about 5 minutes of using the impact gun, it came loose.
2) The crossmember was heavier than I thought and the whole thing dropped on my pinky accidentaly...I think im gunna lose that nail.
Tips: I used a hydraulic jack to support the engine, and i used the stock wheel jack to hold the crossmember in place to position the bolts.
Overall, I looked at my mounts and they were indeed busted. The front had a small rip starting but the rear was destroyed! My ride significantly improved although I still notice a little bit of play (prolly the other 2 mounts). This job is probably more suited for a mechanic, and I know a good deal about cars, its just that its a PITA!
1) Front mount bolt was on so tight that my impact gun had difficulty...after about 5 minutes of using the impact gun, it came loose.
2) The crossmember was heavier than I thought and the whole thing dropped on my pinky accidentaly...I think im gunna lose that nail.
Tips: I used a hydraulic jack to support the engine, and i used the stock wheel jack to hold the crossmember in place to position the bolts.
Overall, I looked at my mounts and they were indeed busted. The front had a small rip starting but the rear was destroyed! My ride significantly improved although I still notice a little bit of play (prolly the other 2 mounts). This job is probably more suited for a mechanic, and I know a good deal about cars, its just that its a PITA!
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