How To: Remove and Replace front and rear Motor Mounts

Yahnozha · Sep 19, 2005

As with the new Prothane Motor Mounts (Modifications found here) Your old ones need to be removed, and reinstalled to make this job complete. Here is what you do, and youll need a 17mm socket/wrench, and a 14mm socket/wrench.

Jack up the front of your car, if you have a LCA brace, remove that. There are 4 (17mm) bolts that need to be removed to lower the crossmember. Dont take the bolts all the way out, just loosen them.

Now take your 14mm socket and remove the bolt that holds each mount, remove these completely. Now with the mounts disconnected from the motor, remove the 4 bolts that attach the crossmember and drop the whole thing out. Use caution, this is sort of heavy.

Now with this in a convenient working space, remove the 4 (14mm) bolts that attach the mount to the crossmember. An impact gun is handy with these.

Now, referr to this thread on how to get your mounts ready for installation.

Here is the comparison of the four mounts, the new prothanes, and the old filled mounts. Side note: I filled my mounts with 94A shore eurothane about two years ago, they held up well, but were definately worn.

Now put everthing back on the crossmember and get ready to reinstall.

The new prothanes put the center hole directly in the middle of the mount, the stock mounts have this hole slightly off center, so when reinstaling this, here is the procedure.

Start by loosening the two (14mm) bolts that hold the bracket onto the front of the motor, you will need this extra room because of the new centerlines of the mounts. Give yourself about 1/2" of room here.

Now mount the rear mount first, its handy to grease the sides of the mounts for easy insertion. Once you get the rear mount mounted, do the front, and leave that bracket loose. You dont need to tighten the mount bolts tight at this point.

From there, get the cross member bolts into place, and slowy tighten them up a bit at a time. These are VERY prone to cross threading so take your time and do it right.

Once you get the crossmember fully tightened to factory specs, go back and tighten the bolt that goes thru the mount, then finally tighten up that bracket back on the front of the block.

Yep thats about it....

Impressions: The very first thing I noticed was that the motor movement was reduced DRASTICALLY when reving the throttle. After driving a bit, you do feel a bit more vibration in the cabin when shifting and at idle, but when you stomp on it, and get up to speed the vibration is next to nothing. I have noticed cleaner shifting now that the motor/tranny isnt flopping around as much. All in all, Id highly recomend these as they are cheap and easy to install. Ill finish up the other two mounts in the next week or two, but I dont think they will have as great as an impact as these two.

Fraychild · Sep 30, 2005

:thumbsup:

Ericdd · Oct 28, 2005

did you support the motor while the crossmember was out? or was it not needed?

Yahnozha · Oct 28, 2005

nope, just let the motor hang from the other two mounts.

neel · Nov 16, 2005

you made that look way to easy, i need mine canged bad theyre starting to sweek when i brack and accelerate

phatg20 · Nov 18, 2005

Yahnozha said:
Start by loosening the two (14mm) bolts that hold the bracket onto the front of the motor, you will need this extra room because of the new centerlines of the mounts. Give yourself about 1/2" of room here.

Now mount the rear mount first, its handy to grease the sides of the mounts for easy insertion. Once you get the rear mount mounted, do the front, and leave that bracket loose. You dont need to tighten the mount bolts tight at this point.

Just my two cents, which aren't much, but you def need to grease the sides of the mounts.... As for loosing that bracket.. eh.... i dunno, i bolted the front mount in first, then the rear, then mounted the Xmember in... Easy as pipe.... But, what do i know

jasone · Jan 30, 2006

phatg20 said:
you def need to grease the sides of the mounts.... As for loosing that bracket.. eh.... i dunno, i bolted the front mount in first, then the rear, then mounted the Xmember in...

Agreed on the grease. Grease and a rubber mallet do the job, nicely.

I tried bolting front first, then rear without loosening the bracket like you suggested, but they wouldn't line up. I ended up having to go back to Yahnozha's loosen-the-bracket suggestion, and even then, the hole wouldn't line up without a some light coaxing by my friend with a crowbar between the mount/radiator. I also had to use the crowbar-helper to position the crossmember bolt holes (rear had to go in first). There seemed to be a little left/right, as well...but just barely.

Hmm...as I type this, I'm starting to think I may have bolted the mounts onto the crossmember backwards? Is there a right/wrong way to do that? I can't remember if the mounts were symmetrical or not. Even still, it seems like the difference would be negligible...

My impressions: Well, I used the prothane inserts also... Wow! The car feels 100x more solid. Just cranking the engine feels more beefy when you start it up. No more rubber-banding whiplash if I'm being lazy with the clutch. Accelerating from a stop is sooo much better. Smoother shifting between gears, also. The vibration is less than with the bad stock mounts...but more than when they were good. An excellent way to fix bad mounts...and, if I ever get another G20, this'll be my first upgrade.

BlueEnyaMix · Mar 7, 2006

jasone said:
Agreed on the grease. Grease and a rubber mallet do the job, nicely.

I tried bolting front first, then rear without loosening the bracket like you suggested, but they wouldn't line up. I ended up having to go back to Yahnozha's loosen-the-bracket suggestion, and even then, the hole wouldn't line up without a some light coaxing by my friend with a crowbar between the mount/radiator. I also had to use the crowbar-helper to position the crossmember bolt holes (rear had to go in first). There seemed to be a little left/right, as well...but just barely.

Hmm...as I type this, I'm starting to think I may have bolted the mounts onto the crossmember backwards? Is there a right/wrong way to do that? I can't remember if the mounts were symmetrical or not. Even still, it seems like the difference would be negligible...

My impressions: Well, I used the prothane inserts also... Wow! The car feels 100x more solid. Just cranking the engine feels more beefy when you start it up. No more rubber-banding whiplash if I'm being lazy with the clutch. Accelerating from a stop is sooo much better. Smoother shifting between gears, also. The vibration is less than with the bad stock mounts...but more than when they were good. An excellent way to fix bad mounts...and, if I ever get another G20, this'll be my first upgrade.

I did my install in about an hour. If that. I had a friend help me though.
Some things i'd like to point out to help people.
You will need/want these as well:
phillips screwdriver
needlenose pliers
jack stands for sure. Duh.
A jack that will raise the car up into the air at least a foot-1ft and a half in the air.
A pipe aka breaker bar. Or you can interlock 2 wrenches together to get more torque. (you will need this.. maybe for the crossmembers, but definitely for the motor mounts)

Take off the crossmember and motor mounts JUST like Pat says.*but read below.
When you go to loosen the front motor mount (closest to the radiator), the P11's rainguard (plastic shield) will be in your way. You'll need a screwdriver and maybe a needlenose to get the screws, and plastic tabs out holding that rainguard on. Get just enough off so you can bend to rain guard out of the way. So you can wrench on the front motor mount bolt.
The front motor mount you will need 2 14mm sockets/wrenches. Reason for this is there is a NUT on the other side of the bolt. This is ONLY for the front motor mount. The rear is just a bolt.

*NOW for installation of the crossmember BACK onto the car.
New motor mounts on. An have some greese on them to help them slide into the brackets. Get the rear torque mount flush up against the frame of the car so the crossmember bolt holes are seen. Now line up and sqweeze in the front mount into the front bracket.
Have a friend hold the front while you work on the rear bracket. Line that bolt up and stick it in through the hole. Get it started but don't tighten it all the way. Now get the front bolt in through the motor mount and through the bracket. Slip the nut on the end of the bolt and tight it down a lil. Ok?
Now line up and screw in the rear crossmember bolts JUST a little. Not all the way yet.
Do the same to the front ones.
Tighten down the motor mount bolts now (clap those babies to the brackets).
Now tighten down the REAR first and then the FRONT torque crossmember bolts.

Any questions i'm always down to help. Just AIM or PM me.
Chris

How To: Remove and Replace front and rear Motor Mounts

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