Battle Scars

As I mentioned in the comments on the latest car stuff post, I took Kutcher to get an alignment done, and then bought a whole new set of tires. The guy at the alignment shop told me that most of the front end could use updating (truly not surprising, I think most of it is the factory original stuff) and the motor mounts also look pretty bad. Back when I'd had the new engine put in, I'd bought a full set of mounts, since they're almost always shot when you pull an old engine out, but the guy who put it in told me the old ones looked like they were in good shape, so I had a full set already. They were the cause of the injuries shown here!!!

Most all the damage came from working on the rear engine mount, which was the last one I did, and the worst of the lot!!! First up, I was under the car, and was trying to slide into a better position, and I slid my head right into one of the jack stands, hard!!! My wife, up in the house, heard me on that one!!! I wondered if I was bleeding, but wasn't going to check with my greasy hands. Of course, it was still hot out, and I was sweating, but couldn't tell if it was sweat or blood rolling down!!! When I was wrapping up and came up to get cleaned off, I asked if there was any blood there, and my wife said there wasn't, but it did leave a mark!!!

Not long after I'd banged my head, I was trying to get something moved using a crow bar. Don't remember exactly what I was doing, but I remember what happened!!! I was under the car again, and the crow bar came back and hit me right on the bridge of my glasses, and knocked them off. It rang my bell, and the first thing I wondered was if it broke my glasses. Fortunately, it didn't. When I got cleaned up, I checked that area as well, and right between my eyes I've got a bump that persists to this day. I'd wondered if it would blacken one or both of my eyes, and today it showed up!!!

Surrogate son saw how my right arm was all scratched up, and asked if Sidney had got me!!! Younger son noted that one area looked a little like angry eyes and a mouth!!!

And there's a triangle or anarchy sign just a little up from there!!!

And, as always, I have to post pictures of the old mounts!!! First up is the first one I did, the front mount. As you can see, it had a pretty big crack or tear on the engine side, and smaller on the other side. It was the simplest one to do, but of course, a complication had to arise!!! It has two bolts that come up through the cross member, and one cross bolt. When I went to install the new one, the back bolt hole stripped out. I was able to find a nut with the correct thread at the Home Depot, which I picked up that night, and installed the next day. Of course, it was between the two sides of the mount and below the radius of the round part, so it was near impossible to get an actual wrench on it, but I managed to get it.

Next is the one from the front of the engine, on the passenger side. This one looked to be the most intact, but it has the circular area in the middle (this is from underneath) and some people say this mount has a hydraulic dampener in it. If it did have fluid, I never saw any sign of it, but the circular area is damaged. Three bolts on the body, two into a frame rail, one into the fender arch, and a bolt down into the engine, and two nuts on studs from the bottom of the same part, most easily to get at from below.

Third is the other end, the transmission end on the driver's side. It has cracks in the rubber on either side of the cross pin. It mounts to the frame rail with two bolts going down, and two going into the side, and has a cross bolt holding it onto the bracket on the transmission. The mount itself is pretty straightforward, but it's right below the air filter box, and the battery tray, so those had to come out. Of course, there was a bit of corrosion under the battery, so I took a bit of time to clean out and neutralize the acid, and wire brush off a good amount of the rust. Since I had the battery tray mount and the hold down out, I gave them a coat of paint.

The fourth and final mount, on the rear of the engine came last. This is where things got really fun!!! Remember the part where I said I'd bought a set of mounts before I had the engine put in??? Well, when I dug them out, there were only three of the four. This was the missing one, and as soon as I discovered it wasn't there, I ordered one. I had the thought that maybe the guy who put the engine in had used this one after all, but when I got it out, that doesn't appear to have been the case!!! The rubber around the cross bolt was completely gone on the one side, and not even connected on the other!!!

It was on Thursday that I'd been putting on the transmission side mount, and hadn't gotten this one yet. Right about the time I was finishing off the transmission mount, it arrived, so I went ahead and got started on it.

It has three studs that go through the cross member, and one bolt from the bottom. Not too hard to get loose, but then it has to slide up, and the side towards the engine is wider than the bracket on the engine, so it has to twist and go to the side to get out. Got it out without too much difficulty. Also, the longest stud came loose and made things go even easier. When I went to put the new one in, it didn't want to go. Got it sideways, past the engine bracket, and was trying to get it straightened and dropped into the mounting holes, and it didn't want to go. It goes over the steering rack, and the stud wasn't making it to the other side.

I worked on it until around an hour after the sun had gone down, and finally called it for the day. That night I watched every video I could find on it, and also came up with the idea that, since the transmission side and front mount both had a cross bolt holding them in place, I could pull both of those and get a better range of motion out of the engine. I did that the next day, and also loosened the bolts holding the sub frame on to try and get more range of motion out of it. I messed with it all afternoon, and into the evening, and didn't get any further.

My wife had the thought that Cheese Ball (the guy with the huge afro most famous from his starring appearance in the “Bold and Brash” clip) may be able to help, and she got in touch with surrogate son to see if he could get in touch with him. He works at a rod shop, and has done a lot of general mechanic work. Surrogate son said he called and messaged him like 20 times, and he finally contacted me late, maybe around midnight, and said he had good news and... neutral news. He can come and help out, but it will be around 2 AM!!! Said he'd keep me posted. Called around 2, and said he was with him, and they'd be along in a bit. I think he called again later, saying it was going to be later, but they were on their way. Ended up being around 4 AM when they got here. Cheese says he's done several of these mounts on various Toyotas and Scions, the trick is to have small hands!!! He takes a look under the hood, and says it has way more room than on the Scion XB, it should be easy!!! I think that jinxed it.

I was out there helping him for a couple hours, when surrogate son came out (I think he got a nap in) and I handed off the helper duties to him, and came in and tried to get a bit of a nap in myself. Close to 8, I'm awoken by the sounds of victory!!! I head out, and he said that finally after fighting it for hours (made me feel a bit better that I'd had so much trouble with it!!!) he pulled it out, and then dropped it back in, and it went right into place!!! I thanked him profusely and told him not to be a stranger (also never got a chance to show him the Studebaker in detail, I'd texted him some pictures and told him about some of the mechanical issues, and he said it looks even better in person) and he took off.

Later in the day, I headed out and put everything back together. Mostly, the hardest part was getting the cross bolt back in. One of the things Cheese had done to try and gain a little more room was to loosen the hard line to the power steering rack, but he'd put it back and tightened it, but when I got everything back together, it was squirting from the fitting. I took it loose again, and then put it back together, and there were no more leaks, but of course, the fluid was low, and it sounded terrible. I was going to check to see if I had any power steering fluid, but when I checked the cap, I saw it uses Dextron automatic transmission fluid. I'd grabbed a couple of partial jugs of just that when I was getting the Saturn engine from my parent's house, so I was set!!! On previous power steering systems, I've just turned the wheels lock to lock a couple of times, and that will bleed the air out. It didn't do it on this one, so I jacked it up again, and did probably about 20 times back and forth, and that did the job!!! It was after dark by the time we finished up.

So one mount turned into a three day job...