Transmission mount – M3 Transmission: Close examination of the oil soaked transmission mount revealed that its effectiveness was less than zero. The replacement came in the mail, so today was the day to replace.
With the car up on jack stands, removal of the mount supports from the car was quite easy. A semicircular plate on the bottom of the car (4 bolts) and a piece on the transmission (2 bolts) and the whole device was removed.
I then attempted to press the mount out of the piece it sits in but I couldn’t get any leverage so that was to no avail. The mount was so far gone, however, that I was able to remove the central rubber piece with no difficulty. Then I carefully made two cuts with a sabresaw and removed the bearing ring by cutting it out.
I cleaned up and painted the mount supports, put the mount in the freezer and the piece into which it is pressed into the oven. Since the mount if “off center”, I puzzled over which way to install it. In the end, I installed with the small rubber side down. In other words, with the meatier rubber in the mount to the top and the off center hole to the bottom. I found and relied on this link:
http://www.vp-autoparts.com/eu/main....le&artno=89731. Interestingly, for the PV444 the hole is installed down, but for the 445 and 210, the hole is installed up. Thank's for looking Army.
Despite my efforts with freezing the mount and heating the piece that it sits in, I had a very difficult time press fitting the mount. I used my heavy vice, but feared I would be unable to complete pressing it in. Eventually, I applied pressure first on one edge, then the other in an alternating fashion and it did press home.
Spent the rest of the day under the car trying to clean up the floor pans. I was only able to complete the driver’s side. So far, the only floor pan that appears significantly compromised is the driver’s. The bottom of the driver’s side toe board is also compromised. The other three floor pans, while showing significant rust from the inside, are not rusted through. From the underside, the pans appear generally in nice shape. The current plan is to POR-15 the pans from the inside and paint with Eastwood’s Chassis Black on the underside. Replacement of the driver’s side floor pan and a patch to the toe board to be deferred as I want to get the car back on the road for the summer.
While I was doing this work, the ID plate on the transmission was revealed. It appears that the transmission is an M3, not an M4 as I thought. The other numbers were Det Nr: 254160 and Tillv Nr: 1450. I assume the Det Nr. is the unit's serial number.
The underside had been previously painted in black – maybe just primer. It was covered in oil soaked dirt / soil and was not so easily removed. The bottom of the car in front of the rear axle had several dents, and the bottom underside rail was also dented and somewhat mashed, suggesting careless jacking. At the end of the day, I emerged from underneath as if from a coal mine.