Motor Mounts upgrade needed?

[John Phillips]

One thing I noticed when taking out my engine: the motor mounts seem to be as flexible as jello! Once I'd removed the dogbone mount under the engine, it swung easily back and forth . I'm used to the poly mounts commonly used on the Factory Five Roadsters and a bunch of older cars I've worked on. Does the TDI have soft mounts because of diesel characteristics, or are my mounts likely shot from 220K miles of use? Main Q: do we want to mount this engine/tranny more solidly? Is that a potentially BAD thing? Thanks for any thoughts.

[dukegrad98]

John, I'm going to guess "both." Your OEM units might be original, and are probably worn out. But diesels do tend to vibrate a lot more than gasoline engines, so I'd think pretty long before I went to a hard-mount or even a poly solution. You might consider replacing them with new versions of the same parts as well.

Isolating the engine from the chassis will make for a much-improved daily ride and drive experience, but at the expense of some rubber wear parts. Some manufacturers are even using oil-filled isolators these days... My FFR Roadster has the V12 hard-bolted direct to the chassis engine mounts, but I wouldn't even consider that (or anything close) for the G3F. Just my $.02, no charge!

Cheers, John

[ixlr8]

Duke John has it correct. Your old mounts are a bit trashed, poly ones are available. But most folks I know who have put them in pull them back out as too much vibration makes it into the chassis. I would buy new OEM.

[John Phillips]

Played with the mounts a bit tonight, they are officially mush. Will order some OEM replacements, most cost-effective and least risky approach. Thanks for the ideas, guys