After successfully changing the gearbox mounts (after a small mishap. Note to self, get some left handed drills) it was time to change the engine mounts. The gearbox mounts are pretty easy and straight forward, piece of cake actually, these engine mounts are a different beast and a job if I had to do it again I probably wouldn't.
First up, off with the intercooler and intake pipework between the airbox and the turbo. Out with both batteries, now you can see and touch the mounts. Then I undid the top nut on the mount and wound it off to the top of the thread, then set about cracking all the other bolts (passenger side first) seeing as though the Superior mount is going in this side I undid the engine bracket bolts as well as this gets replaced. Upon removing the little heat shield I found it was cracked nearly all the way through and probably wasn't that far from falling off, so in the bin it went, one less thing to put back on.
I didt the same on the drivers side as well, only left the engine braket bolts alone.
Next was to lift the engine, it went up easily untill the top of the fan hit the fan shoud, at this point it still needed to go another 10-15mm to clear the top of the threaded bolt in the top of the mounts, clearly this was not going to happen.
So I continued to remove the passenger side mount and engine bracket all together. All the bolts are hugely tight and access is limited so it's a time consuming exercise. Some from above and some from below.
Now to mount the Superior mount, just put it in loose, adjust the engine height a bit to line the centre bolt up then just nipped everything up.
Now for the drivers side. No way was i able to manipulate the mount out, so I bit the bullet and removed the engine bracket also.
Then set about installing the new genuine mount and the engine bracket again.
Do everything up on both sides super tight, let the engine down and clean up. Radiator goes in tomorrow so I left the batteries and intercooler out till then.
For the record, a new mount is 51mm thick to the outside of the plates, the old passenger side mount measured 48mm and the drivers side 47mm. I did notice I coud relatively easily squash/tilt the old drivers side mount by hand and bring the plates together. (I could also do this with the new one....) The old drivers side mount showed plenty of evidence where it had been compressed with nice shinny smooth marks on the inside of the plates.
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