Engine Mountings

The engine mounts that came with the engine were those used on the MG ZT, they are aluminium castings that provide a horizontal mounting surface for mounting to large diameter hydraulic mounts.  Unfortunately these were totally unsuitable for use on the truck as they fowled the front suspension.

Here you can see the old cast Aluminium mounting brackets and the picture on the right shows one of the hydraulic mounts in place on my friends MG.

The mounts that I am using are aftermarket Mustang versions.  They are of a very different design to those on the MG.

This is what the Mustang mounts look like.  As can be seen their design meant that they sit parallel to the sides of the engine block.  So the brackets that they mount to on the chassis need to lean at the correct angle.

To get the angled face required I decided to make a triangulated bracket up out of 4mm thick steel plate and then weld these to the chassis and cross-member. 

I am mounting the engine slightly to one side to allow more room for the steering linkage to the brackets are slightly different each side.

Here are the brackets folded at the correct angle.

Here you can see both sides in place prior to welding in place and bracing.  For strength and neatness I will be boxing in the front face leaving the back open to get to the mounting bolts.

10/06/06

I did some more work on the engine mounts, I decided to plate the front face over to give them added strength and make them look neater. The drivers side can not be completely plated over as the end of the steering rack pokes through it. I test fitted the steering rack to get the right clearance for the hole through the mount and noticed something that I had not accounted for. The pipe work on the rack has a nasty bend that effectively goes straight up right about the mid point of the engine sump. This means that it it now fowled the sump when the engine was on the mounts at the height I had made them.. AARRGGHH!!!.

12/06/06

I ended up welding an extra 3/4" to the bottom edge of the mounts to raise everything.  This then gave the required clearance to the engine sump.  The pictures below show the extra 3/4" that I welded on, prior to grinding down flush.

The finished mounts.