Replacing S3 Engine Mounts

Replacing S3 Engine Mounts

Author
Discussion

White S3

Original Poster:

170 posts

137 months

Monday 26th January 2015
quotequote all
What a censored awful job. With hindsight, I wish I'd replaced them when I had the body off 18mths ago. If you currently have your PnJ apart doing the outriggers etc... CHANGE THE MOUNTS TOO IF THEY HAVEN'T BEEN DONE RECENTLY.



Above is the reason for the forage into the "man cave". One sad offside mount which allowed the sump to rest on the ARB. Nearside one still measures up at 50mm and doesn't appear to be distorted laterally - chose not to replace based on the fact that I couldn't get a spanner onto the chassis end of the mount with sufficient purchase to loosen it!

Anyway below is a list of the items needed to be removed to be able to replace the offending item:
Both front wheels
Anti Roll Bar
Dizzy Cap
Oil Filler Cap (fouling bulkhead when engine jacked up)
Ignition Module plug (fouling bulkhead when engine jacked up)
Spark Plug leads - offside (just to clear space)
Exhaust
'J' downpipes (fouling on chassis cross member)
Offside Engine Bracket
and finally the mount itself.

Unbolting the sodding thing was a challenge - invaluable advice from a previous thread -

[quote=clarenceboddiger]"Tough Nut" 2006
... 4 different 17mm ring spanners from friends. The Britool (CM17 Stamping) one has the points in a different position to all the others including Draper,Elora,Hilka.I managed to get a minute turn with my original spanner then used the Britool spanner to do the same and kept alternating between the two ring spanners.

This was just for the engine end of the mount, but the chassis end I found needed a 17mm flexi-head ratchet spanner. Lots of wiggling and pulling the old mount finally came out and the new was relatively easy to get in if you are good at 3D-Tetrus. As with a previous thread, I did loosely connect the mount to the bracket before putting back onto the engine/chassis and then lowered the engine fully before tightening all bolts.

Have yet to fully re-assemble exhaust and ARB so not too sure how much clearance I now have, but it was zero before. I'll update the post once complete but comparing with other points on the chassis, I'd say it should be 25-30mm. Total time for one (and a half) mount changes - 8 hrs with a bit left to do!

Next job, looking at it now, will be to degrease/prepare/repaint sump - Anyone know how hot it gets (for the correct rated paint)?