Dumb question.....I wanna change my motor mounts before putting my motor back in.....how do you get to the nuts on the back of the motor mount bolts?

 

Through the coil springs Good luck ..

 

Teenage son . . .

 

I went through the small round hole torwards the back for most of them. I think this is what it's there for.

I used a ratchet that bent near where the socket attaches. Small socket M15. The stiffer the joint is the better. I also used a regular wrench to hold the other side in place for both inside the K mamber and on top depending on which side I could get to.
I went through the coil side a couple of times. One I remember using an extension. You'll see when you do it. I shined the light through from the opposite side to help see. Two people would have been much easier. It's not too bad once you do it this way.



I've read where some people tack weld the nut in place, I don't have a welder so i can't say if it's possible. Some say there's lock washers on the nut side but I'm sure mine didn't have them but watch for them so it can add to the fun when you go to put it back together. If you're doing the inserts grind 2 notches through both halves on one and 3 on the other so you can treat the rust and get them back together in order.

 

I took a 15mm wrench, heated it up and bent it to the right angle for the bottom two. Then used a swivel and a 15mm for the top one. If you go this route, its about a 25 min job.

 

Thanks for the help!! I only worked on for a few minutes and didn't feel like stabbing someone in the jaw with a steak knife, so I figured I'd ask those experienced ones!

 

Gather all your extensions and swivels, and find the right combo for each nut. I highly reccommend PB Blaster a day or 2 before - a small squirt makes life so much easier.

On the reinstall - it's nearly impossible to get the nuts back up into the holes and started, and not worth the frustration. On the harder ones, just put the bolt up in the hole instead, and put the nut on the topside - makes 30 minutes of frustration per bolt into a 3 minute job per bolt! It really doesn't matter which way they go, as long as they get in and get tightened.

 

Its easiest to do with the A arms out

 

There was talk about installing the bolts from the bottom before and some pointed out that if it does come loose that the bolt would be more likely to fall out completely. If you hold the nut up to the hole it's not too bad to do.

 

i use a long 15mm open end wrench through the bottom holes in the a arm. to reinstall i put sticky double sided tape on wrench to hold nut from falling off. if u use lock washers glue them to the nuts the night before.

 

Horsepucks!

Trust me - if the motor mount becomes even slightly loose for any reason, you'll know it way before anything "falls out". I've had a bad motor mount on an F-Body, you'll know the instant it happens from the vibrations as a result.

 

New motor mounts - $35

New motor mount hardware - $5

Knowing the mounts are a PITA to change and asking a friend to do it while you mess with something else - PRICELESS

 

Suit yourself, it's not that hard to put it back the way it was from the factory. I'm only relaying what's posted on this site from when I did mine.

 

LOL - yeah I know where your coming from. But, when I was under mine, I fooled with just one nut on one mount for an hour and never got it, so I gave up, put the bolt in from bottom, and was done with both sides in 15 minutes. I ended up with 2 bolts in from top, and two in from bottom, on each side. With it that way, I have no concern - it ain't going anywhere anytime soon. Besides, with the design of the mounts, the worst case scenerio is that the motor would drop 3/8 inches? All 4 bolts on both mounts would never fail before I had a chance to notice the vibes and stop the car.

 

Yeah,
I didn't mention that the engine was out when I did mine, don't know if that is the same for everyone.
The design is a real PITA anyways since it's basically a simple deal with really bad access. If they put that round hole closer to the mount, it would be a lot easier.

 

Sweeet. If you guys are having problems with the motor mount bolts, how do you change spark plugs on a car with all the emissions equipment? Don't answer that, I don't want to know.
Motor mounts on these cars are a cake walk. Supposing you have the engine out already (cause if you didn't why would you be trying to replace the mounts?) its fairly simple. Take a good look at how the mounts were installed by GM. You can do it exactly the same way with the hardware that was originally on the car.

You'll need a wrench, personally I prefer gear wrenches since they are more user friendly, but any old combination wrench will work. Slip the wrench on the top side of the nut/bolt.

For the bottom side, use a socket, a wobble or swivle joint, a 6" extension and a ratchet. A typical universal joint will not work in my experience, getting the right angle to the bolts is impossible without the right tool.

The holes cut in the crossmember for the A-arms allow access to 2 of the 3 bolts, the other can be accessed through another hole in the crossmember. There aren't that many holes, just look through each one with a good shop light till you see the bolts. If you can see them then you can get the tool to them.

Remove each nut and try not to lose the washer between the nut and the crossmember. If you've already removed the nut, you're probably thinking there was never a washer there. It is there... or it was there before it fell into the bottom of the crossmember. Grab yourself a wire coat hanger, straighten it out except for the hook end, bend a nice curve into the long section so you can feed it down in the crossmember, and then scrape all the contents from the bottom of the crossmember to the A-arm opening. Eventually the washers will fall out.

With everything out, the mounts will lift off the crossmember. You can now replace them with OEM pieces or get some aftermarket poly mounts, whatever.

To reinstall the mounts, put the mounts in place on the crossmember, and drop the bolts through from the top, just as they came off. Now we have to figure out a way to get the washers onto the bolts, and hold them there till we get the nut started. Tape, magnets, etc might work ok for you, but for myself I just put two or three drops of super glue on each washer, and glued them to the nut. The glue won't hold forever, in fact it will probably break when the nuts are torqued into place. It will hold the washers to the nuts, so you can just drop the nut into your socket and guide it into place with the extension and ratchet.

When all the nuts and washers are back on the bolts, tighten everything up. Use a torque wrench if you're concerned its going to come apart. If you use the proper torque spec (30lb), you don't need to worry about the mounts coming loose. Consider this, GM's method held together for better then 10 years, why re-engineer it now? There's a right and a wrong way to do every project, and personally I put more faith in GM's selection of hardware and methodology then the corner hardware stores made in China hardware.

The pics I'm attaching show the diagram from the GM manual showing the correct bolt holes for a SBC. The nut is shown but hard to see in the picture is the washer sitting on top of the nut. The procedure for removing and replacing the mounts also refers to the washers. The second pic I'll attach shows the tool that didn't work, and the one that did. Both are craftsman pieces, the one that worked is an impact piece.

 

Enjoy... If this entire process takes more than an hour or two, you're doing something wrong.

 

Well, well,
What kind of deal is that? It looks like it swivels. I'll look for something like that next time I'm at Sears.
Thanks.

 

I'll have to say, Drew, that you've completely over-simplified the task, and that what you say to do is nothing like what GM did when they assembled them.

This is another in the long list of factory ease being a maintenance nightmare. If you can do it in an hour, bully for you. I doubt the typical professional mechanic would be willing to accept the job for an hour's pay. There may be guys out there who can get it done in an hour, but I'll bet you dollars to donuts they'll estimate more than two hours before starting it. (I have no clue what the book rate is for it, but again, I'll bet it's more than 2 hours.)

 

It's one of those jobs that looks a lot harder then it is. Compared with other chores on these cars, the motor mounts are really really really easy. If the engines in the car, then yeah it could be much worse, but I removed the OEM mounts, modified the carriers to work with Energy Suspension inserts, and reinstalled them all in the course of an evening with only the engine removed. I didn't unbolt the a-arms or remove the springs, and aside from scraping 20 years of sand/gravel out of the crossmember and promptly into my eyes, it was a painless job.

Next time I go through it I'll take step by step pictures.

 

It's easy if you have the right tools. What is that tool in the picture that you posted earlier? Does it swivel?

 

When me and my friend did mine we put the bolts in through the top and put the nuts into a swivel socket with an extension. The first mount took us somewhere near 30 mins per bolt because we had probs allining the nuts up, but the second mount took us only 30 mins total because we got the hang of it.

Its not realy that hard but be glad you are doing it now instead of a 100+ degree summer day. I hate working on my car during the summer.

 

Okay, whatever you want on your conscience.

It's easier than solving world hunger, but harder then most any other maintenance job under the hood.

 

It's easier then fixing a tilt steering column, easier then changing sparkplugs on a stock 1987 V8, easier then a fuel pump swap on a rusty thirdgen, easier then installing new carpet, easier then a header install...

My conscience is clear. It worked for me, and hell I'm not even ASE certified. I've never even used a hacksaw to delete a catalytic converter, cause I think it's too much work. But motor mounts? It's like getting to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop, just takes a little time and patience.

 

sorry but I am getting ready to try to do mine...
the engine is out... the bottom two no biggie... the upper two... yeah out comes the a arm is the only way I see it happening.

 

i'll just throw in how I did it....

I wanted to replace my front springs anyway, so I just removed the inner two A-arm bolts (with a jackstand under the frame, jack under the bolt hole area), and lowered the A-arm, and removed the spring. Did that for both sides. Then it's EASY as pie to do, (like very easy), kinda tricky when doing it alone (like me), but if I woulda had help, it woulda been much easier. After removing the mounts, I bolted the new ones onto the motor, and lowered the motor into place, and then bolted them to the k-member. Lowering the engines part of the motor mount into place over the clamshell on the k-member, while trying to align your tranny input shaft is tricky, so that's why I left the mounts completely on the block. Once the motors in, use a pry bar to wiggle the motor around, and drop the bolts in place, then the springs are out, so just put on nuts, and you're done. Once the weight of the motor is in the car, it's easy to put your front springs back in (new ones of course )

 

well actually I did get all but 1 bolt done. kinda easy.
On the drivers side going in at front a arm mount with a wobble and 12" extension got those kinda easy.
The pass side, bottom was easy. Top rear was a little pain...
Absolutely forget the front top... I still cannot get that on after a good 3-4 hours.
I was even gonna drop the A arm, but even those damn bolts do not want to come out of the mount...
I decided to hell with it, it is not that bad. Only a little wiggle and it is going back togeather with only the drivers side replaced.

I REALY REALY hate engineers... they need to have people that actually WORK on cars design them... I mean have the nuts formed in the crossmember, have an access hole... SOMETHING...

 

Getting the nuts off is a piece of cake compared to torquing them back to spec.

BTW, if it weren't for engineers you'd still be walking or riding a horse.

 

but it would be much different if mechanics designed the car(s)... would it have been so hard to have the front a arm mount a little more open? hell a 1/4" would be great, no issues at all then...

and sometimes I would almost perfer a horse... feed it and be done. Some of this repair stuff is...

 

I tackled motor mount removal last week. I decided to add my two cents to one of the more recent threads.

Other threads I found useful:
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/engi...al-tricks.html

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tech...or-mounts.html

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tech...or-mounts.html

I removed the nuts without touching the lower control arms. Also, the engine was out.

I used a 3/8" breaker bar with a 15mm crows foot. This let me tilt the crows foot to the angle needed to get on some of the nuts.

I actually reached 2 nuts on each side with a standard Craftsman 15mm combination end wrench through the round hole on the bottom of the k-member near the mounts.

The length of this wrench was probably crucial. If it were 1/8" longer I wouldn't have gotten it in, and if it were an 1/8" shorter I would have repeatedly fumbled it into the k-member. I saw another member specifically mentioned using a Craftsman box-end wrench.

I had a helper and we used a standard 3/8" ratchet on the bolt side. My nuts were not seized up at all. If they had been, I don't think my breaker bar trick would have applied enough leverage to break them free.

I have yet to tackle the new motor mount installation.

I'm grateful to this website, these threads, and the members for providing such valuable information. Thanks!

 

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