Recent content by jwmelvin

My car has been "professionally" serviced by a couple places that are both highly regarded on this list and nonetheless had some serious issues. One of those was an uninstalled front-motor-mount bolt, which led to a clunk that took a long time to find, given the lack of visual access. I agree...

Pretty sure I used this urethane. I just filled the mounts after sealing one side with tape. I hope you can figure out what is causing your clunk.

In my experience, you can see the torn rubber in a motor mount. The front one especially though would be tough to see. An inspection camera would be useful for that. I can confirm also that clunks happen when a motor mount is not installed or half installed. It's not so hard to repair a motor...

No data logging on board? Fueling with the RRFPR? I'd check belt slip. The large hose can leak and cause hunting idle, which is a symptom of vacuum leak. That hose is the bypass path for compressed air to run back to the intake. I believe the original setup had a spring inside the hose to...

Yes just pull off the rubber trim (far enough to uncover the metal clips). It goes back easily enough.

Just to follow up, I found two broken grounds near the alternator. Almost for sure because my right-side engine mount had broken both bolts to the engine and had no captive nut on the frame. Super unclear how that could happen but I repaired it all and my car seems happy again. In a few years I...

I’ve never heard of it so it seems pretty strange to me. I think at one point my car did not have the front motor mount connected (after a service) and maybe that stressed the right side mount enough to break the bolts? Or they were overtightened? And maybe once the mount>engine bolts broke, the...

Ha! That did not work out. The epoxy did not bond to the body, which maybe shouldn’t be so surprising as I couldn’t prep it at all. The nice thing is the epoxy made a nice isolation layer for the stainless plate. I made a wire holder and was able to install, and I have the benefit of no...

I hear what you’re saying but I think it’s a non issue here. It does not get wet and there is no metal contact. The aluminum is painted and the glue separates them.

The nut is pretty well centered in the hole so I think it will be okay. It was clamped to the plate when I brazed them together and the ridge on the plate centers it in the body hole. I guess Ill know tomorrow when Input the mount on.

Well, I decided if I could get a nut plate in place it would be a good solution. A test convinced me I could. So I made a stainless plate with a lip that extends up a bit to stop fly from seeping into the threads, brazed a nut on it, and glued it in. I think it’s going to work. I used a...

It’s crazy, right? Moving all that stuff was early in my process. I’m going to play with some options today and will see how it goes. The bolt-style rivnut tool would be the only option for that, but I’ll try getting something into place on the backside first.

Here’s what the backside looks like; I’m not sure how the captive nut was supposed to affix but I’m still likely to try rivnut from the front or a press-in nut from the back. Slightly tempted to try gluing a flange but on the back.

Yea it’s weird how fine the pitch is on all three of these engine mount bolts. I’m liking the riv nut idea okay, but it seems really hard to install one there. Just room to turn wrenches is super tight. But I’m not sure I see much option. I’d like to figure out a little better how the original...

Well, I had a big success and found an even bigger problem. I got a left-hand drill and silver soldered it into a rod as an extension: That let me drill the broken bolts and they screwed right out. Fortunately they weren’t tight: But when I went to install the engine mount, the large bolt...