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Beef up those motor mounts!
By: Vince Cuffaro
13secondcivic@purehonda.com
Motor mounts are a good thing....for
grandma's street car! But unless you want to weld your motor to frame to
keep it from torqueing under hard acceleration (i.e. drag racing) or
spend a lot of money for new mounts, they are a sure source of lost
power. Here is an easy fix that does work...I've tried it! Honda's, Civics'
specifically, have an 'open' type of motor mount. Steel mount with a
rubber filler and a steel sleeve in the center. These mounts usually
have spaces or gaps in the rubber. Here's how to fix them.
First off, before you start, remove
your mounts (please read the service manual or have a qualified tech do
this!) and clean them very well! I used soap, water and finally mineral
spirits to remove the years of grime. Be sure the mounts look to be in
good shape, if not you'll have to replace them. No sense in fixing
something that will just have to be replaced eventually anyway. You'll
need to find an old tire, preferably a retreat that lost it tread! But
any bald tire will do. Carefully look over the openings in the mounts,
try and gauge how big a piece of rubber you might need to fill the spot.
The trick here is to get rubber that is quite a bit larger than the
opening your trying to fill. I'll explain later. Using several pieces of
rubber is an option, but I'd try and keep it to one. When I did my
mounts I used an old, bald tire that was no more than a 1/4 inch thick.
You shouldn't need more than this as the spaces in the mounts are pretty
tight, at least on the older (88-91 era) Civics'.
Ok, on to step two. Cut the rubber!
Make sure to cut it longer than the mounts. If the mounts are 3 inches
wide, cut the rubber 5 inches wide. You can always trim them later if
you'd like. The extra length will help you get the new support into the
mount easier. Apply a little oil or grease to the mount. VERY LITTLE!
This will help in getting them in place, but do not over do it! Just a
tiny bit rubbed on the rubber is more than fine.
continued...
Click here!
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