This job was not super difficult, but it was very tedious. One post that I read said that it is a “fiddle” job because there is a lot of fiddling with the mount bolts, heat shields, and mounts to get them out and into position. I concur with that assessment. The job would have been a little easier if my hands and arms were just a little bit smaller. I made some mistakes along the way and I’ll share them here so that, hopefully, it will prevent others from wasting their time on the same mistakes that I made.
1. I made sure the steering wheel was straight, then secured it with 2 bungee cords to the brake pedal. My hope was that I wouldn’t need to detach the steering coupling as dlafever mentioned he didn’t need to detach his. I wasn’t sure if I would get away with it, so I secured the steering wheel just in case (see Fig. 1).
2. I released the hood latch, then lifted the car and set it on top of my 10” cradles. Since I was going to be working from the top and underneath the car, I didn’t want to lift it very high. The 10” cradles were perfect. I also left the lift arms under the car for added safety since I knew I was going to be crawling under the car (see Fig 2).
3. I opened the hood and removed the engine cover (see Fig 3).
4. I needed a place to put the feet of the engine hoist that I purchased from Harbor Freight (see dlafever’s link in this thread). When the hood is open, on the far right and left sides of the engine bay, there are plastic pieces that cover metal brackets (See Fig 4). I removed the plastic, exposing the brackets by gently lifting up the pieces. They come right up without any problem. If I hadn’t removed the plastic, it would have fractured under the weight of the engine. This was the only place I could find that looked like it could support the weight of the engine and still fit w/ the Harbor Freight engine mount.
5. I put the engine hoist on the car with the hoist feet over the brackets (see Fig 5). The engine hoist bracket on the car is a loop that is front and center of the engine. You can’t miss it. The chain that came with the engine hoist would not fit through the loop, so I just put the t-end of the bolt through the loop. This worked out fine, although it minimizes your ability to maneuver the engine much when working on the car. I obsessed about how much weight was being transferred to the feet of the hoist and worried that those metal brackets they were resting on would bend. I didn’t need to worry, they were very strong.
6. The next thing I did was tape the special 16mm tool (see dlafever’s link below) that I got on Amazon to the end of a ratchet extension (See Fig 6). I put the tool on the extension such that if I held the extension vertically, the tool made an “L” shape that angles down towards the floor. This is important. If you put the tool on the extension such that it angles up, it will not catch on the bolt nearly as well. The special tool accepts a 3/8” ratchet. All my extensions are 1/2” and short, so I needed to use an adapter and a couple of extensions. While this worked, it would have been better to just have one long 3/8” extension because the added width of the adapter inhibits the turning radius in an area that is already very tight. I would not recommend doing this job without the special tool. Taping the extension(s) to the tool proved to be a good idea - it prevented the assembly from coming apart.
7. After setting up the tool assembly, I made my first mistake by attempting to take off the top bolt of the driver’s side engine mount first. It’s really tight, hard to get the wrench on, and very little room to turn the bolt once the wrench is on the bolt. What I should have done is removed the BOTTOM bolts of both mounts first, then lifted the engine, then taken off the top ones. After about an hour of fiddling with one bolt turning about 1/8 of a turn before having to move the wrench to a different position, I figured this out. So, remember this: remove the bottom bolts on the mounts first, then hoist the engine, then remove the top bolts.
8. Hoisting the engine: One of the reasons this project took me so long is that I was very nervous that I was going to break something while hoisting the engine. Specifically, I was worried about putting too much stress where the engine bolts to the bell housing of the transmission and I was worried about damaging the steering because I didn’t disconnect the coupler. I’m not sure if I should even worry about those things, but I’ve never hoisted an engine, nor have I dropped a transmission, so I don’t know what I should worry about. So, I raised the engine very slowly and stopped frequently to inspect and make sure nothing was binding. I tried to lift as little as possible to get the job done. In retrospect, I probably should have lifted higher sooner because I found myself unable to move the mounts enough to get them in or out, then I’d lift a little, try again, lift a little, try again, lift a little, try again…..
9. Driver’s side engine mount: This one was the most difficult for me. Access is very tight (See Fig 7). As mentioned before, getting the top bolt off the mount is very tedious, but goes a lot faster when the engine is hoisted a little. For one thing, there’s just a little better angle. And another benefit is that you can push on the engine and it will move a little, giving you even more room. I was able to drop the mount straight down between the chassis and the oil pan. When putting the new mount in, I brought it up through the same passage. However, I had to hoist the engine a bit more because the new mounts are taller than the old mounts. Now, here’s a little pointer. The mounts have a rubber cover that goes over the top of them. This cover moves all over the place when you are trying to get the mount positioned. Next time, I will tape the rubber cover to the mount to prevent it from sliding around. Also, I would draw a vertical line at the metal tab all the way down the side of the rubber cover so that it’s easy to see where the tab is located. The metal tab faces outwards and slides into the notch on the engine mount. I spent a lot of time lining this thing up and getting that cover just right. Also, when you are installing the new mount, tighten the top bolt down first and to the proper torque spec. Well…yes, I used a torque wrench and I tightened it to spec, but since the special tool moves the leverage point, I’m not sure how accurate the torque is. The mount will be hoisted with the engine so the bottom bolt hole may be too high to start. If it is too high, wait until you install the other mount before lowering the engine to get the bottom bolt in.
10. Passenger side engine mount: This one was easier for me. I figured there were 3 options to get the old mount out and the new mount in: i) remove the alternator and take it out/in the front of the engine; ii) remove the exhaust and take it out/in the back; iii) remove the bottom bolt on the sway bar link and 2 bolts on the sway bar bracket and pull it out the back (just as dlafever did). I pondered all 3 options and came to the same conclusion as dlafever. The easiest alternative is option #3. The only drawback is that the sway bar link attaches to the top of the steering knuckle (although there is no need to detach the upper end), which means an alignment might be necessary if you go this route. Fortunately, an alignment doesn’t appear to have been necessary for me. I forgot to take pictures of the sway bar link, but you will see it and the bracket clear as day when you are contemplating how you are going to get the mount out and in. Once you have the old mount out and the new mount in place, then bolt the top first. Then, when the top one is done, lower the engine in small increments until the bottom mount bolt is long enough to reach the bolt hole and get that bolt started. Then, go over to the driver’s side mount and get that bottom bolt started if it isn’t already started. Once both bottom bolts are started, then lower the engine completely and tighten the bottom bolts to the proper torque specs.
11. To finish up, I reinstalled the sway bar link bolt, took off the engine hoist, put the engine cover back on, put the plastic covers in the engine bay back on, put the splash guards back on, removed the bungee cords from the steering wheel, and took the car off the cradles.
12. The next day (actually, later the same day since I did the motor mounts until about 1:30am), I did the transmission mount. It is really easy and there are several videos on how to replace a transmission mount on youtube, so I won’t go into detail on that here.
All-in-all, this was a long and tedious project. I spent about 8 hours on this, primarily because I was so cautious and because I tried removing the top bolts before hoisting the engine. If I had to do it again in the near future, it would probably take me about 3 hours as long as I didn’t run into any seized bolts or anything unexpected. Special thanks to Konigstiger for the WIS instructions (which include the torque specs) and dlafever for the guidance on the engine hoist, steering coupler not needing to be removed, and the hydraulic fluid in the face (which, yes, it did happen to me too, even though you warned me)!
