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Oct 24, 2015 10:41 pm
Oct 24, 2015 10:41 pm
Subject: Re: LG45 Engine Mountings: Assessment and Replacement
I am most grateful for the advice given and today I have spent a couple of hours under the car trying to write up a sequence of tasks to take account of the challenges described. Firstly I discovered that the mountings are almost certainly circa May 1937, this makes the castle nuts/split pins even more difficult to remove due to their condition.
However, I did a note of the work for the front mountings and whilst access to the castle nuts is awkward I felt confident I could swap the fronts. The rectangular plate on the front mountings runs long ways along the chassis making access a little easier from underneath.
So I moved onto to inspecting the rear mountings and immediately noted they are set at 90 degrees to the front ones. As David points out, the outer mounting bolt heads are sandwiched between chassis rail and chassis bracket. If you can get a thin spanner on the bolt head sandwiched between chassis bracket and mounting flange you still cannot get the actual bolt out without removing the chassis bracket that the engine sits on. So as far as I can see, even raising the engine will not free the mounting. The only way I could see to get the chassis bracket off would be to raise the engine high enough, but that would still give awkward access, or to remove the engine so the bracket can be taken off whilst supporting the rear of the front wing as the bolts also hold the wing mounting box in place
Considering the manner in which the rear engine mounting is fitted, I feel that originally the mountings must have been bolted to the chassis bracket prior to the bracket been fitted to the chassis rail. Lagonda certainly didnt expect the mountings to be changed with the engine in situ.
As things stand I am not ready to take on an engine out job, the car drives well and the engine mountings were one of my ongoing maintenance tasks following on from last years G10 gearbox mounting change (which makes me quite accustomed to aligning the engine/gearbox)
Grateful for any comments on the accuracy of my analysis above
Regards
Mark (Y2)
I am most grateful for the advice given and today I have spent a couple of hours under the car trying to write up a sequence of tasks to take account of the challenges described. Firstly I discovered that the mountings are almost certainly circa May 1937, this makes the castle nuts/split pins even more difficult to remove due to their condition.
However, I did a note of the work for the front mountings and whilst access to the castle nuts is awkward I felt confident I could swap the fronts. The rectangular plate on the front mountings runs long ways along the chassis making access a little easier from underneath.
So I moved onto to inspecting the rear mountings and immediately noted they are set at 90 degrees to the front ones. As David points out, the outer mounting bolt heads are sandwiched between chassis rail and chassis bracket. If you can get a thin spanner on the bolt head sandwiched between chassis bracket and mounting flange you still cannot get the actual bolt out without removing the chassis bracket that the engine sits on. So as far as I can see, even raising the engine will not free the mounting. The only way I could see to get the chassis bracket off would be to raise the engine high enough, but that would still give awkward access, or to remove the engine so the bracket can be taken off whilst supporting the rear of the front wing as the bolts also hold the wing mounting box in place
Considering the manner in which the rear engine mounting is fitted, I feel that originally the mountings must have been bolted to the chassis bracket prior to the bracket been fitted to the chassis rail. Lagonda certainly didnt expect the mountings to be changed with the engine in situ.
As things stand I am not ready to take on an engine out job, the car drives well and the engine mountings were one of my ongoing maintenance tasks following on from last years G10 gearbox mounting change (which makes me quite accustomed to aligning the engine/gearbox)
Grateful for any comments on the accuracy of my analysis above
Regards
Mark (Y2)