docmirror

I just finished the motor mount job on my 968. I changed the heading of this thread to reflect the job I did.

odurandina

just a lift and a jack. sucks ***.

RajDatta

Check out this site.

www.clarks-garage.com

docmirror

Motor mount R&R tutorial. For those who want to save some money and are inclined. There is a write up on Clarks Garage website which I reviewed. I do things a bit different, take some shortcuts and maybe save some time.

Disclaimer: This is how I did it, my car is running fine, and much smoother. There are many ways of doing this job, this is just one that is relatively fast, and easy for a shade tree DIY kind of guy.

Tools: 2 trolley jacks, two jack stands, one or two bottle jacks, metric socket set, long breaker bar, 3 foot and 18" crow/pry bar, 13 & 19 mm wrench, several long 3/8 extensions and a wobbly extension is nice.

Overview: We will be jacking and supporting the car at the jack points on the side behind the wheels. Removing the bolts from the suspension A arms, the vertical crossmember bolts, and two heat shields. In doing this, we will support the front of the engine with the bottle jacks so that we can raise it a bit to take the old mounts out and put the new ones in. Once the new mounts are in, we'll snug everything back up. The crow/pry bars are used to move heavy assemblies around without too much muscle and tussle.

Preliminary work: Jack and support the front of the car, so the wheels are 2" off the ground. Remove the belly pan and set it aside. While looking underneath, locate the large alum A arms on each side, connected to the webbed alum crossmember, and the two motor mounts attached to the crossmember, and attached on top to two motor mount braces to the engine block. The pics are mostly from the left side of the car, the work is the same on the right except for the heat shields around the upper flange, and the lower motor mount.

Process: With the breaker bar, and 17mm socket, loosen then remove the four rear vertical bolts holding the A arm bushing in place. With the 19mm socket and 19mm wrench remove the horizontal bolts at the front of the A arm. You can use the rear bolt as a drift to drive the bolt forward. Take care you don't tear the steering boot as the bolt goes through:

docmirror

The A arms will now swing down and outward to access the lower 17mm nut on the motor mount. Use the small pry bar to pry the front A arm and bushing down and out of the way. Use the breaker bar/ratchet to remove the 17mm lower MM nut and washer(I'm prying against it in the top pic), set them aside. Use the 13mm socket and ratchet to remove the two upper MM bolts. The left front will be access from the top using a lot of extensions, with the wobbly extension at the bottom of the stack. Set the bolts and washer aside.

Right side: Remove the lower back heat shield 10mm bolts, and set it aside. The right rear will come out with the 13mm wrench. The front one can be accessed from over the top of the crossmember, and under the motor mount brace.

docmirror

Now, we will locate and remove the crossmember vertical bolts, but first we need to support the engine. I used the bottle jack and a 2x6 board across the front of the engine at the AC bracket and the PS pump bracket. It supported the engine just fine during my work. All the fasteners should be off the motor mounts now on both sides. Jack the bottle jack in front to take the load off the motor mounts. If you use two bottle jacks, you can work left and right equally to keep torque off the tube in back. Try to keep it going up evenly.

Using the 19mm socket and breaker bar, remove three of the four crossmember bolts. They will be just above and outboard of where the front A arm bolt was. They go right up into the chassis. Make sure again that the engine is jacked in front, and the load is taken off the mounts, then remove all bolts except the left front. Loosen the left front, and leave about three threads hanging on that bolt.

Now, you can tip the crossmember down and back, you may need to pry it a bit. Once the crossmember is down and tipped back about 20 degrees, you should be able to remove both old motor mounts by finagling them inward, and back, then lift the mount up out of the lower threaded post.

docmirror

Have a couple of beers, and take a break. If you are a clean person, now is the time to get busy on the top of the crossmember, A arms, and other bits under there that are accessible. Now is also a good time to inspect the inner A arm bushings. The sleeve in the center should be tight in the bushing, and the bushing should be very tight in the housing. If there is even a little play in it, you will need to schedule bushing replacement.

Note that the mount brace on the engine has a coned recess. There is a coned flange on the top of the motor mount that fits in there to align the top bolt holes. Insert the right side motor mount by angling it inward at the top, and then push the post down in the lower hole. The flat flange on the motor mount faces out toward the tire.

With the right mount in place, insert the front right vertical crossmember bolt with the 19mm socket and a long extension. Drive it in a few threads, then remove the left front crossmember bolt, hanging the crossmember by the right front bolt. Pull the left side crossmember down and back and insert the left side mount.

You now have the two motor mounts in, and the crossmember hanging by the right front bolt. Insert the other three 19mm vertical crossmember bolts and drive them in about 5-6 threads. Don't tighten them yet.

docmirror

Now you'll use the pry bars to align the cones on the mount braces with the motor mounts. As you lower the front bottle jacks, the mount brace will come into contact with the new mounts. If you are very lucky, the mounts will slide into the cone recess. A bit of grease on the mount cone will help to get it to align easily. I had to do a modest amount of prying left and right to drop the engine and brace down onto the mounts smoothly. You can also pry the crossmember a bit left and right but that doesn't move very much.

Once the engine braces are down seated on the cone of the mount you can start putting in the upper 13mm bolts. Get all four bolts in and torque them to 17 Ft Lbs. The fronts can be accessed from above using a lot of extensions and a wobbly extension on the socket.

docmirror

At this point, it's basically buttoning up what you've taken apart of the suspension. Fit the 17mm nuts and washers on the bottom of the motor mount posts and torque them to 48 Ft Lbs. Tighten the crossmember vertical bolts to 62 Ft Lbs. Put the upper and lower heat shields back on, and fit the five 10mm bolts to the shields. Torque to 8 Ft Lbs.

We just have the A arms to reattach. Once again, you can use the pry bar to line up the front horizontal A arm bolt holes in the crossmember. I also used the bottle jack on one of the A arms to keep it up in place while I drove the bolt back in. Fit the nuts and counter hold while you torque them to 62 Ft Lbs. Line up the rear A arm bushing housing with the bolt holes and put the four 17mm bolts up into the chassis and torque them to 48 Ft Lbs.

Have someone start the engine and rev it a bit by blipping the throttle and watch the mounts to make sure there's no looseness anywhere. Shut off the engine, install the belly pan, and let the jacks down or remove the jack stands. Now go for a drive, and enjoy the smoothness.

sydneyman

awesome writeup! thanks for taking the time Doc!

RajDatta

Great writeup.

dougs968

Thanks Doc! That will sure help when I get around to doing mine.

Doug

LTDzak

Thank you very much for the write up, only 968 specific one on the web. Am in the midst of doing this job, and discovered that my upper heat shield (not the one attached to the crossmember, thats the lower one) is cracked right where the two 5 mm allen head cap screws hold it to the block (or maybe the exhaust manifold). Questions are:

1.) Does this upper heat shield need to come out to R&R the driver side mount? Have read in at least one place that the mount rotates out towards / in front of the crossmember

2.) Is the part the same as the one used on the 944?

3.) Can it be welded? It's available from Porsche but ships in from Germany, 2 to 4 week lead time.

4.) Is it possible to replace this shield without disassembling the sway bar, mount, crossmember, sway bar, possibly control arms . . . .

Thanks for any insight, and if anyone has one of these upper shields kicking around please drop me a PM

thomasmryan

no need to remove the upper shield to do the mount but I take the cross member completely out.

from recollection, that heat shield is two parts....mine was four. the front section that encompasses the front exhaust runner the protects the heater valve and oil filter is the second section.

I took it out during a oil filter housing gasket swap. that entails lowering the sway bar and unhooking the steering line but it may not be required to remove the shield.

I used rivets on the support arm for the shield and made a 'backing plate' where it fatigued at the block.

tj90

I was following the torque specs above (the 17mm to 48ftlbs) and one of the bolts snapped. I rechecked the workshop manual and found that the spec is 48Nm which is 35 ftlbs. I dont think that the bolt should have snapped at 48ftlbs but I am going to ask for a refund on the Meyle mounts. Seems like poor quality control.