Had a couple hours to work on the car today. I'm having a HELL of a time trying to get the passenger-side motor mount lined up. Using the engine hoist, prybars, penetrating oil, hell, I've even bench-pressed it* to try to move it into the correct location, & climbed into the engine compartment & gently bounced on it to try to get it to move down a bit! Poly motor mount inserts might be great once the engine's installed, but my current opinion of them sure as hell can't be printed in a newspaper...

I've got the engine pretty close now, it seems to only be 1/2"-3/4" off, but I just can NOT seem to get that last little bit! I can feed the bolt through either side, but it just won't quite line up enough to go through all the way! Anyone have any tips/suggestions??
Thanks guys.


* I was actually kind of surprised/proud of myself, that my out-of-shape, "geriatric" butt could still do that...

 

Mine fought me, too. And, I didn't even use the same thing. I got a bolt through 3 of the front mount "holes", that 4th one was half a hole off. I basically did what you described except the crawling in the engine compartment part.*

I finally got the vice grips out and clamped them on the two pieces to line them up, then whacked on the bolt from the other end to get it started in the hole. Not my idea of a "clean install", but at least I got the job done finally.

* I did plenty of leg-overs crawling into the engine compartment doing the K-member notching with the car 18" off the floor - that'll keep the ol' joints limber...

 

Even though I made my own mounts during mock up I could slip them together with ease. After the tear down for paint and whatnot the final assembly they were sooooo much grief. We got some big dudes working here ( like 345lbs big ) and it still required loosening of the bolts from the k to the plates to get the cross bolt in and then tightened the plates back up which I didnt really design the plates for so I had the heat wrench out bending cheap wrenches to fit in the k from the lca holes and BLAH pitfa to be sure.

In the end? Still totally worth it

 

I was going to have to be very, very desperate before I resorted to loosening those mount bolts on the K-member. . .

 

Ummm yeah.... Twas a sob

 

Ahh the joys I have to look forward too lol

 

When I installed my swap mounts, I had the A-arms dropped since I was putting in poly bushings at the same time. With the A-arm out of the way, you have a straight shot at those nuts inside the K-member.

If I had thought about it, welding the nuts in would have been the thing to do. But, I got in a hurry. . .

 

Sounds like I'm gonna have a real BOOGER of a time then, considering that I'm pretty much working by myself...

 

Is your cross member in yet???

When I swapped to poly mounts I took the Spohn 4th gen conversion mounts off as well as took the clamshells apart.

My biggest asset was the tailshaft. I found I could use the leverage to line up the bolt hole by myself with not a lot of trouble. Notice I said not a lot, I dit not say no trouble at all I could manipulate the holes up and down or left and right with a jack stand under my T56 and no cross member just by lifting my tailshaft up or down or left or right.

I don't know if it will help you but I thought I would toss it out anyway....

 

Actually if you're referring to the transmission crossmember, then no it isn't. I've been waiting on getting the engine into position before starting on the flywheel/clutch/bellhousing/transmission stuff.

And what you're saying is so simple, I'm a little disappointed that I didn't think of it! I think that what I'll do is to fab up a quick "T-shaped" deal where the short crossbar of the T is a piece of angle iron that bolts to the back of the block, & the longer vertical piece (maybe 3, 3.5 ft long) will be another piece of scrap metal that I have sitting around here that will provide the leverage. Don't know yet whether I'll bolt or weld the two pieces together, depends on what I find to use for the long piece.

(And ordinarily I don't know whether or not I'd do this just for my own swap, but since we've got a local thirdgen group, I'm sure that this fabbed-up tool will come in handy for other guys as well.)

Thanks for the excellent suggestion!!