The Royal Barge has always been a bit lumpy at tickover - initially I put this down to the ignition timing and mixture settings (as readers may remember, both were incorrect). Whilst it had undoubtedly improved in this respect, the motor still did a bit of a cha-cha-cha at low revs. I thought it might well be overdue some new engine mounts, and hoped this might cure the issue.
The engine mounts are as cheap as chips at about £6 each, and arrived in the mail this morn. I had not a lot to do after getting back from a motorbike ride, so I thought I'd make a start. The nearside one looked quite easy, so that is where I began.
The first thing to realise is that the mountings are not identical - fortunately the suppliers guessed right and sent me the correct pair:
Someone (on this forum) had mentioned there was a risk of the slant 4 engine falling over during this job, so I re-purposed this:
To make a support beam (I doubt that anyone will recognise its origin unless they have fitted a towing hitch to a Fiat Panda). It fitted pretty well and located firmly onto two of the suspension turret studs:
I used this as well as a trolley jack under the sump to manoeuvre the lump around, and keep it in place while I removed the nearside mounting. The job itself is well covered elsewhere, in summary:
1. Put the car on ramps for access.
2. Disconnect the battery.
3. Fit the support beam.
4. Undo the 3 bolts holding the top of the mounting to the block.
5. Undo the 3 nuts securing the captive studs to the cross member.
6. Take out the old mounting to reveal:
... as you may see, the old one at the bottom wasn't doing much mounting - and was the reason for the engine dancing the can-can. I don't know how long ago it had split into two parts, but I had a feeling someone much have investigated previously as the bolts were not difficult to get undone.
Re-assembly was just the reverse and pretty simple.
Anyway, the left side was an easy job and probably took about 40 minutes. I had a look at the right side - which will be more of a challenge. I tried to crack the 3 bolts holding the lower mount assembly, but they didn't want to budge. It was 18:00 by then so I gave them a good spray with DP60 and will leave them a day or two before trying again.
I suspect the right side will take me a bit longer because access is much more difficult, the good news is the old rubber mounting is complete so there is not so much urgency to fix that side. I've also ordered a transmission mount and will change that at the same time.
I dropped the Royal Barge off the ramps and took it for a short spin - I'm pleased to say there is a really significant improvement - the vibration problem is solved and the driving experience is far better.
All in all a good win for £6 and less than an hour's work.
:-)