Lower motor mount replacement?

Its not a bad job. You probably haven't seen it since you can't really see it from under the car(the cradle blocks it). Get access to it by pulling the passenger tire and the splash shields. Once the splash shields come off its right there in front of you. Put a jack with a block of wood under the oil pan to support the engine, and take the 2 bolts out of the mount. You will have to wriggle it around a little bit to get it out, and it will help to jack the engine up a little. I just did the job last night on my car actually.

The mount I put on the last time I did the job, I got at NAPA, and it was made by anchor. Looked like a piece of crap, and performed like a piece of crap(didn't last very long). So this time I went to AutoZone, and ended up with the same exact mount made by Anchor that is a piece of crap. I would suggest trying to get a mount that isn't made by Anchor.

Jamie

What a name brand! It gets its name not because it anchors your engine, it gets its name because its better as a boat anchor. ;)

Oh, OK. I remember seeing something that obviously used to be rubber there when I did the tensioner, but didn't connect it with the fact that it's a motor mount :-(.

Seeing as how my oil pan gasket leak is right above it, and the oil can't be good for the mount, maybe I ought to accelerate the oil pan gasket job so I can then do the motor mounts.

For some reason I always assumed the lower mount had to be on the driver's side of the car.

Thanks for the comments about the crappiness of that aftermarket motor mount... maybe the Saturn ones aren't so bad after all.

Tim.

I wouldn't be too worried about an oil leak hurting the motor mount.......

You might check with Joey over at 6th planet, which is what I should have done when I just replaced this mount. He'll set you up with a good quality, can't even tell its been used factory piece for a good price.

I bought both upper and lower motor mounts from Saturn yesterday ($90 each! They were like $40 last time I got one...).

The upper mount was pretty much completely collapsed, and after taking it off I found that the rubber was pretty much broken off too.

The new upper mount, where the studs from the engine go through it, was thicker than the previous one. And the previous one was thicker than the original one (so much so that I had to buy new studs when I did that one). So maybe they're beefing these up as time goes by.

Because the upper mount was so collapsed, the bottom mount was pretty much sitting on the cradle, where the oil and associated grunge was accumulating. The rubber was extremely swollen and distorted, I assume from being saturated in oil.

Even though I haven't fixed that leak yet, I put a new bottom one in because with the top mount in, the bottom mount was no longer being pressed down into the cradle.

It's a world of difference after putting the new ones in. No more seeing everything in the rear-view mirror shake up and down, no more clunk when I accelerate as the motor twists around, etc. I had actually gotten used to that clunk! I was a little confused when I stepped down on the gas and the car just moved without any clunking!

I might try that... but it'll have to be a lot of savings before I decide that used mounts are good enough.

I'd really like to see a non-dealer source for good affordable motor mounts (meaning, say, $30 each). I'll probably go through another couple in the next fifteen years that we own this car :-). I figure that somewhere around the year 2020 it'll be time to get a new car.

Tim.