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| Joined: | 09-10-2012 |
| Location: | Little Chute, Wisconsin USA |
| Posts: | 435 |
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To make a long story short, it's fixed, at least good enough for now. And if this story doesn't make it apparent, I don't get under the car much... 90% of the work I've done has been cosmetic work to the body, along with brake and engine work. I've been pretty lucky mechanically up till now. This was the first time I really examined the underside of the car. This picture shows what I ended up finding...
At left is the transmission mount, which needs to be replaced but seems to be mostly serviceable at this point. At right is what the bracket SHOULD look like, at least mostly (more on that later). At center: well, that's what I took out. Apparently it's been like this since I got the car, since I'm pretty sure I would remember hitting whatever object that bent it like that.
It's kind of hard to picture it in context, but those of you that are familiar with this part know that it shouldn't look like that. First of all, the bolts that attach the mount to the transmission (the "ears" in the mount at left in the picture) were nowhere to be found. Worse, the bracket is bent so far that the mount wasn't even underneath its expected mounting point... if you were to see the bracket when it was mounted to the car, it's bent at well over a 45 degree angle and the mount was an inch or so in front of where it should have been. Oddly enough, it was bent FORWARD which I don't quite understand.
So, while it was holding the transmission up, it wasn't actually attached to the transmission at all. Nothing to keep it from moving from side to side. My guess is that it's been like this since before I got the car, and I must have hit a bump hard enough and/or driving it hard enough that the driveline torque was pushing it to the right.
Now for the good news: those of you that were at the Jensen East meet this year remember that I had the trailer full of assorted bits from my parts car. And I distinctly remembered, as I was looking at this, seeing a bracket just like this and putting it in the trailer with the other bits. Honestly, I didn't even know what it was, and I don't remember removing it from the parts car. My guess is that when Ernie pulled the engine and tranny from it, he must have just tossed it in the boot. Or, I did remove it but promptly forgot where from. Anyway, I dug through my parts and there it was... and that's the one you see on the right in the picture. It's not perfect, but it's WAY better than the bent up one and it actually bolted on nice and flat.
So, I jacked up the transmission, removed the bent bracket (which was a chore because it was bent so badly that I couldn't get at one of the bolt heads, I had to get in there with a vise grip and bend it back enough to give me access), removed the mount assembly (which isn't in the greatest shape but serviceable) and headed across the street to the hardware store for some new 5/16-24 bolts and locknuts. Cleaned everything up, chased the holes in the transmission with a tap (since there hadn't been bolts threaded into them since who knows when), and reassembled everything with the "new" bracket while prying the transmission back to where it should be as I tightened the nuts.
And she's... well, not good as new, but at least everything is now where it's supposed to be and not moving around like it was. I think I'll be ordering a new mount from Delta, probably this winter when I replace all the suspension bushings (at least that's my plan anyway) and address it then. At least I now know everything is secure, and the cost came to about $2.06 for the nuts and bolts. Once again the boxes of bits removed from my parts car comes through for me, and gives me yet another entry in the "glad I kept all that stuff" file.
Last edited on 07-20-2014 06:00 am by answerman