New Engine Mounts

 

New mounts in place

After some time, the new engine mounts had arrived. As agreed, to make it as quick a turnaround as possible the mounts were not powder coated. They were only intended to test out the new installation. The main concerns with the new mounts were clearance at the front of the engine, engagement of the already shortened prop shat and obviously clearance of the clutch lever to the chassis.

 With the new mounts in place, I set about making some of the key measurements to feedback to GBS.

Engine front clearance - old mounts

Engine front clearance - new mounts

Clearance at the front of the engine is tighter but acceptable. There is also a little scope to move the engine back a few mm.

Prop shaft engagement - old mounts

Prop shaft engagement - new mounts

This is slightly worrying. The prop shaft end piece is 110mm long and the engagement seems a bit marginal. Rich at GBS managed to find the specs from Mazda that confirm that the engagement is within the specification. I will also move the engine back as far as it can go to achieve a bit more so long as I get clutch lever clearance......

The next stage was to temporarily rig up the flexible clutch line and bleed the clutch. First time for everything, but that was pretty straightforward. What was less straightforward was engaging the clutch with my hand whilst trying to take a photo of the clearance.

Clutch engaged with no freeplay

Clutch disengaged - we have clearance!

With the clutch fully disengaged I have clearance! There is a little scope left to shift the engine back a bit, but also need to account for clutch wear as well. If I really needed to a little grinding of the clutch lever could be done as well. 

So now to send the mounts back to GBS for powder coating and move onto the next steps in the build.