The final engine mount...

Today I'd like to talk about one of the engine mounts, which turned out to be a lot more of a struggle than it should have been. The mount in question is the one highlighted in red in the picture below. You'll notice that it's one of the larger mounts and one of the first to go in...

I know, it needs a clean...

As you may recall, getting the engine in was a bit tight, and the bolt was put in place then, but as it involved a lot of brute force and grunting at the time I just wanted them in place and I'd fit the necessary spacers afterwards. Mistake number 1.

You see once the engine had settled everything got even tighter, so when I pulled the bolt out into the position in the pic above, the engine moved just a millimeter or two. I'd taken it out to put the correct spacer in as that plastic one in the pic is clearly not the right size. This is where mistake 2 comes in. You see, due to the length of the bolt, it fouls on the chassis meaning you can't actually get it out without moving the engine which I'm never going to do again. So that meant, if I couldn't take the bolt out, I couldn't fit the spacer.

Oh well, I'll just pop it back in again and add it to the list of worrying things to fix later. No, wait, the engine moved didn't it, that means that the bolt won't go back through. Plus, because the chassis is there, no matter how mad you get, you can't hit it properly with a hammer.

So I got my Dremel out, only my Dremel isn't like the nice mains powered one I borrowed from work, mine is a wiener little crappy battery powered one that cost me about £8 from eBay. 

Sometime later, I'd shaved the paint off the chassis and just about made enough room for the mount to slip back through. I then cut some spare rubber hose, slotted it around the part where the spacer should go and tightened it all into place. It's not perfect, but the hose is squeezed so tight it'll absorb any movement, I'm sure it'll be fine.

At last, all engine mounts in place.

Not the most exciting story I know, but these are my daily struggles, one bolt can take an hour!

In my last post I mentioned that the throttle cable that I have is way to short, well after reading some useful build logs on the Tr1ke forum, I urm have to admit that the cables I have aren't exactly throttle cables. In unrelated news though, I now know how the handbrake cables attach. Now to order a throttle cable...

If anyone is reading this who isn't on the MEV forums, then I'm currently hunting for a helping hand. I'm based in Birmingham and am quickly running out of things that I can actually do myself. So if you fancy giving a hand, either just advice or mucking in, then drop me an email at mark.connop@gmail.com.