I've parked my thunderbird since the plates expired and have really looked at fixing it for the first time.
3 of 4 motor mount bolts are broken off inside of the block. motor mount brackets are all twisted and broken. ac line is smashed, exhaust manifold has a hole in it from hitting what's left of the motor mount on drivers side. power steering rack has several holes, oil pan is really dented around rack and k member. powersteering line has broken my newer battery tray and I have belt marks on the battery.
I think I will need some chuck w mounts and a poly trans mount, assuming k member isn't bent up too badly. amazingly, not of my vac lines are actually broken, hood has a dent from the ac bracket.
Its a tough old bird, but man have I beat the out of it in the two years I've owned it. I can't imagine how you guys track your cars to the track with stock motor mounts without them breaking. what's really funny, I have put three sets of mounts in my car in the last year. every time the engine bracket broke or failed rather then the mount.
Maybe 275/60's and dumping the clutch isn't a good idea. I can only imagine how much worse it would have been if I would have thrown the 3.73 traction lock rear in it. this was on a stock 7.5 one wheel peel.
I only took a picture of the top of the engine, everything else was too greasy.
(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d82/bosenKevin_02/2014-02-25%2011.10.38.jpg) (http://s33.photobucket.com/user/bosenKevin_02/media/2014-02-25%2011.10.38.jpg.html)
Well when I hammer mine it spins the tires. A lot. Even on a prepped track it breaks the tires loose at the start line. I figure that's saving the motor mounts. That and I only beat the snot out of the car the 1-2 times a year I drag race it ;).
I remember as a kid, we were at a demo derby. There was a car there, the engine mounts busted. He'd hit reverse, the engine would flop over and bounce the hood, he'd slap it in drive, and the same thing. LOL.
He made it through the heat, next round, the hood was off. Quite the show. Apparently smething else must have broke though, as pretty soon it made a big bang and wouldn't move, although he revved the hell out of it, engine still lurching from side to side.
Another time, a guy apparently broke his driveshaft...he was hammerin' on it, and something let go, and he didn't lift in time and blew the engine. Big fireball from underneath...after that round, some guys with buckets were picking up pieces off the dirt..lol
My Sport had both mounts separated...only thing holding the engine down was the tabs in them. Chuck's mounts in now, she won't go anywhere..and if she does, well, nothing would be left to save after the force it would take to rip it out.
thats a lot of stuff to break from a broken mount.
my drivers side mount busted on my tbird and after driving around for a few weeks(maybe less) very gently it chewed up my battery, rad shroud and hood pad thingy.
thank god i had the plastic battery tray(v6) but it still leaked some and ate my paint underneath. i think i have pics of it somewhere.
Someone on here once linked to their youtube video of a white 87/88 TBird with a bad mount. They revved it and let off and it kept sailing upward, and then falling back down with a big "WHACK" noise. I laughed so hard I was crying....
Also, the 20th cat has 140k miles, original mounts. Full GT40 setup, hard shifting AOD, 3.73 Trac-Lok. I run pretty much nothing but used tires on both of my cougars so I can do burnouts whenever I want. It's not very often on the red car, but I take off hard lots and it spins at launch and then of course chirps the tires loudly on the 1-2. Never really gave much thought to the mounts...but I'm glad that unlike my friends, I don't care about being fastest. They break and wear stuff out. I....don't :D
Pretty sure that was my thunder cat...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDDKoedmj80&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I could pop the hood by power braking it. someone at my work (one of the mechanics) bet me my car couldn't peel out, so I power braked it and the hood came up when I took off. I told them that it was my motor mounts and they didn't believe me. I showed them and the video'd it.
By the way, that car still had the tabs holding things in place. my tbird, neither tab is doing anything, and on my cougar, drivers side tab is broken off.
Haaaa there it is!! :D No tabs, that must be something to get used to. I'm guessing to someone not accustomed to the car it would feel like the drivetrain is about to part company with the car.
I ordered some mounts from Chuck a few years back when I put the Trick Flow heads/cam/intake kit on. I was in a pinch and needed the car back right about when everything was being wrapped up so I installed stock mounts with the intent of swapping them out when they let loose. Chuck's mounts came about a week or so later. They're still waiting to be swapped in. Granted, the car is on regular street tires, but she still hooks decently.
The factory mounts were hollow and filled with silicone "frog jelly" to absorb engine vibes. Mucho $$$ when they inevitibly failed early. The cheap "no-name" replacements from the corner auto supply are solid rubber and just about as good as hi performance ones from the racing catalog. Nothing spoils a good burnout like the sound of fan meeting shroud.
Many years ago I was showing off in my '66 Galaxie 500. I was sitting at a light next to a guy I knew in a 3rd gen Camaro. Light turned green, I floored it. The engine mount let go, that big ol' 390 rolled over onto its side, pulled the shift linkage apart, and pulled the throttle linkage wide open. I dunno whether any of you has ever tried to wrestle with a two-ton Galaxie with manual drum brakes and manual steering stuck at WOT in low gear, but let me tell you, it was an experience to remember. By the time I managed to switch the key off I bet I covered a very scary half mile...
Yeah, I have been breaking the metal brackets up top. they have been twisting and eventually breaking apart. you can see stress cracks in them. when I first threw the t-5 in, I had the time of my life chirping 1st and 2nd on both up and down shifts. then I think the 275/60's killed the next set. now 3 of 4 bolts are sheared off in the block, and after assuming they were loosening up, I used lock tight on the second set. I'm pretty sure I'm pulling the motor to try to fix stuff this summer.
If things work out, my 85gt block will likely go back in with a full h.o. upgrade and gt-40 heads and intake. it already has a higher then stock stang volume Bosch pump and I have everything else minus tail pipes. the car was eating a lot of oil at its estimated 250k miles, and I sure haven't been treating it like glass.
I remember when I broke my first motor mount. 1985 Turbo Coupe, I told my pops that when I gun it the shifter (five speed) jumps to the right. I remember trying to use my right arm to hold it in place after banging second gear. My pops just smiled and told me to show him. After a lil test drive he smiled and told me to pull over. He got in the drivers seat, popped the hood and loaded the engine up three pedaling it. My eyes just about jumped out of my head, my engine was trying to leave the engine compartment. I told him what I saw, he just asked what I thought had happened. I was 17, that was 16 years ago. Pops had a funny way of teaching me, but since I now make a living fixing cars, he must have taught me right.
Yeah, my shifter moved quite a bit too. always threw people off.
that is freaking hilarious!,, the throttle linkage stuck open!!!!!!!!!!! yeah scary for sure
Last year we pulled and upgraded my son's silver bird,, motor just raised right up,, both mounts had separated. he had been driving it like that for a year and a half.
never really noticed a problem.
Thread resurrection!
Reading over this one reminded me of when mine went out. IIRC the 88 3.8 has 3 mounts and 2 out of 3 were separated. It used to always *CLUNK* down after I let off the gas from a stop and scare the out of me... I thought the trans was going or something possibly worse. Took a friend of mine who had much more experience at the time to say "hey nah it's just your motor mounts" and we popped the hood and I power braked it, got to watch it try to twist out of the engine bay... lol good times
My first YouTube upload like 8 years ago I think.
https://youtu.be/xDDKoedmj80