Motor and Tranny Mount PSA:
So the Modest Mouse song "We'll all float on..." came to mind when I decided to peek under the hood to look at my motor mounts. Really the song has absolutely nothing to do with my car other than those lyrics above (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ8B4Pe5EUI). Whatever....
I'm not sure why this was something that for some reason hadn't registered as a part to check on the $250 project E30 but I'm damn glad I decided to check them...
Below is what I found.

For the unfamiliar and not-so-keen eye you will notice that the arm is only sitting on about 60% of the actual motor mount. Awesome I know!
...I didn't even want to check the other side.
So I did some research, ordered some E12 motor mounts and E21 tranny mounts and this is what I found after pulling the old ones.


Yes. That would be two TOTALLY severed motor mounts, one leaking and trashed tranny mount and one weak (i.e. about to fail) tranny mount. To make things worse the whole engine had shifted to the driver's side (duh, this is why the fan wouldn't fit) so I had to "coax" it back to the passenger side. So the engine was just FLOATING with no bolted support to the chassis. I'm not sure why nothing catastrophic hadn't happened before this...
So moral of the story: If you buy a $250 E30. Check the mounts IMMEDIATELY.
That is all.
So the Modest Mouse song "We'll all float on..." came to mind when I decided to peek under the hood to look at my motor mounts. Really the song has absolutely nothing to do with my car other than those lyrics above (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ8B4Pe5EUI). Whatever....
I'm not sure why this was something that for some reason hadn't registered as a part to check on the $250 project E30 but I'm damn glad I decided to check them...
Below is what I found.

For the unfamiliar and not-so-keen eye you will notice that the arm is only sitting on about 60% of the actual motor mount. Awesome I know!
...I didn't even want to check the other side.
So I did some research, ordered some E12 motor mounts and E21 tranny mounts and this is what I found after pulling the old ones.


Yes. That would be two TOTALLY severed motor mounts, one leaking and trashed tranny mount and one weak (i.e. about to fail) tranny mount. To make things worse the whole engine had shifted to the driver's side (duh, this is why the fan wouldn't fit) so I had to "coax" it back to the passenger side. So the engine was just FLOATING with no bolted support to the chassis. I'm not sure why nothing catastrophic hadn't happened before this...
So moral of the story: If you buy a $250 E30. Check the mounts IMMEDIATELY.
That is all.
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