Well, I worked on them for about 3 hours last night and am not much closer
to getting the car on the road. I removed the rest of the broken bracket.
The rearmost bolt from the bracket to the mount plate was *SO* stiff. Not,
tightly done up, just so rusty that I couldn't move the spanner by hand and
had to put some steel pipe over it and lever it. I tried to hacksaw it, but
access was too limited. It must have taken me nealy an hour to undo that
bolt in ~32nd's of a turn at a time and I kept dropping the spanners!
Eventually both bits of the bracket were off and I looked at the mount.
Thanks to Paul for the reply. I just don't think any of my spanners will get
in there, so I'm going to leave the rubber mounts (well, maybe change the
passenger side which I can get access to the nut). I then went to fit the
new bracket....mmmmm.....<scratches head>........what an atrocious piece of
design! Makes me ashamed to be British. HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO UP
THAT BOLT WHICH GOES INTO THE BLOCK ?!?!?!?!?!??! I messed around for
another 2 hours before giving up. I thought about skipping that bolt and
just running off the timing plate bolts, but no, this will bust again after
not many miles.
Then I hit on an idea....
The reason I can't get the block bolt in is because the mount is in the way,
and I can't remove the mount, so I need to move the engine much higher or
much lower. The engine won't move much because the other mount is still
attached. If I undo and remove the other bracket (engine safely supported)
then I should be able to raise the engine up high enough (how high is ok?)
to fit the brackets correctly on both sides and then lower the engine down
and fit the bolts from the brackets to the mount plates (with shims
between).
Is this the secret to doing this job?
It must be one of the worst fiddliest jobs I've ever done on any car!
Scott
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