engine mountings

[California Dreamin]

Personally...I would be automatically replacing the 4 X 8mm nuts & bolts holding the engine bar to chassis...they get very seized because of where they are...snap them off if necessary! the rest are usually fine.

Martin

[what2do]

Engine mounts are on my to do list. the rubber on the g/box mount looked like it was cracking and had perished. Are these easy to do?

I did mine this week. The gearbox mount was very easy. Van rear up on ramps, jack and wood under g/box, took about an hour to remove and replace.

The engine bearers took rather longer. I found it helped to remove the crankshaft and water pump pulleys to get easy access to the mount top nuts.
I also dropped the silencer so I could see what I was doing. The bearer to chassis bolts were rusty so a bit tedious to remove, everything else came apart readily.
I needed to use a length of timber to prop the bearer up whilst I re-inserted the bearer to chassis bolts.
Total time, including running a die over some of the rusty bolts was around 5 hours, with coffee breaks. I am old and work slowly; I'm sure an ace mechanic could do it in 3 hours.

The rubber on one outer mounting was 80% detached from the backing plate; the gearbox mount was starting to come away from its metal surround.

What were the symptoms? No juddering, but a coolant leak from the thermostat/head joint which only occured at startup.
And now the exhaust tailpipe doesn't knock on the body. result!
jp

By George, you were lucky to notice/find a coolant which only occurred at the time of start up. That snippet of info maybe useful one day when trying to find and allusive leak - of which, I'm sure I have several!!

[fairwynds]

Yes, you are correct, definitely worth replacing the engine mountings.
The problem has been that people put on a shiny new stainless exhaust system, on a poorly tuned van, with worn engine mountings and wonder why, a year later, their exhaust has shaken itself to death!
Your exhaust is off anyhow, so access greatly improved.
The issue has been a particular problem of the early DG engine using the stainless steel exhaust system from VW Speedshop, as the exhaust silence does not have the two 'saddles' to support it that the later DG engines have...

[Roydini]

Thanks for that fairwynds. I've just received my new speedshop exhaust and some new engine mounts from brickwerks. Am I right in saying that you have a early DG? How did you find fitting the exhaust? Are there any 'tricks' or tips you encountered along the way? I'm totally paranoid about snapping studs so I think I'm gonna chicken out of doing it myself and get a garage to do it but it would be great to pass on any experiences you had when fitting yours.

Thanks again mate

Henry

[California Dreamin]

It is this system that you need to fit the shorter 'Polo' oil filter? or is that just with engines that have an oil cooler? just a heads up.

Martin

[Roydini]

It is this system that you need to fit the shorter 'Polo' oil filter? or is that just with engines that have an oil cooler? just a heads up.

Martin

According to the product description on their website you only need the shorter oil filter if you have the 2.1 fuel injection model. I'll update this thread if I find out otherwise tho!

Thanks for the heads up all the same tho.

Henry

[Roydini]

Thought I'd update this post for future reference as I have just finished fitting the speedshop exhaust on my 'early' 1.9 DG.

I'm really happy with it and would certainly recommend it to others The fit is nice and neat and there was no need to change the oil filter for a shorter 'Polo" one. I was super cautious with the studs and soaked them about 5 times with plus gas and then practically melted them all with a small hand held blow torch! This may have been overkill but i really didn't want to snap one as i didn't feel confident enough to attempt drilling one out. I used new steel studs and copper nuts from brickwerks and ran a tap through the stud holes to clean them out a bit. The sound from the silencer is great too, it's slightly louder than the original one but by no means 'boy racer' style. I also chose to replace the engine mounts - I received mixed advice on here about whether or not to bother doing this but decided to go ahead anyway as the early vans don't have the 'cradle' to support the silencer and I wanted to reduce the engine vibrations as far as possible. Again, this might have been overkill, time will tell!

All in all I'd say it's a good system for the price.