Transmission Mounts

Took a couple days off.  I went skiing on Thursday then hosted the annual Christmas office party on Friday.  While all that was going on, my new transmission mounts and coil over shocks arrived.  I started in on the transmissions mounts today.  Previously we spotted that one had gone bad and really, it's a good idea to change them if you have things apart anyway.  Who knows when you'll get another chance to do this again?

The first thing you have to do is wrestle with those 27mm bolts.  Otherwise known as BAB or Big Ass Bolts!  I had already bought the 27mm socket and was ready for battle.  Little did I know that I would bend my wrench so easily.  Check it out!

$25 later I have bought one awesome breaker bar and am now ready for round 2.  I tried pulling, kicking, cursing, one came loose but the other would not budge.  They say these bolts are at 165 lbs torque.  Seems like more to me.  (Or possibly that this hasn't been done in a very, very long time. The first step when dealing with highly resistive bolts is apply the penetrating oil.  Wait.  Try again.  If no luck then turn to heat.  I used a mini flame thrower.  Everything got to smoking but still no luck.  Then I had a brainstorm.  Why not use 2 tons of pressure?  My floor jack can handle up to 2 tons so why not see if I can tap into that power?  I positioned the breaker bar with the socket securely on the bolt, then started to lift, rechecked the socket, gave it a few more pumps, then repeated.  It worked - WooHoo!!!

The mounts in the bell area were out.  Now to attack the front mount.  It is at the very front of the transmission and has 4 bolts that are not the same size.  There is also the grounding strap, if yours is corroded then you'll need to replace that as well.  Everything went smooth until I came to the nut that sits in the middle of the two curved beams.  I believe the last person to do this did not use the right size bolt.  It was thin and this made it very difficult to get a hold of.  The socket would sit squarely on the nut but the wrench when attached would not fit.  An open end wrench would not fit.  I finally was able to use the "woobly" or u-joint style extension to make it work.

Finally, comes the task of sliding the transmission forward so you can take the old mount out and put in the new. This is not as easy as it sounds.  You have to remove the clutch cable and access a panel next to the passenger seat to disconnect the shifter cable was well. This is going to take a while. On another note, it's highly recommended that you at least replace the nuts and washers, given how cruddy mine are, I'll replace the bolts too.