This would be my second attempt at making up the engine mounts. The first time the engine was placed too far forwards that the driveshafts to the mini hub would of been almost 30mm out. But moving back to the subframe progress.
Once i was happy with the engines overall position with the engine slightly tilted forward as with most 4efte builds, i bolted a piece of metal to the gearbox and tack welded it to the subframe. This would save a lot of trouble with having to chock the engine from underneath while i worked on the gearbox mount. The reasons for the tilt is because A: the original engine also sat on a slight tilt, B: the intake manifold had to clear the firewall and the master cylinders, and lastly C: This would push the driveshaft further back to get a better alignment between the gearbox pods and the mini hub (cv joint).
Amongst all of this i went through the trouble of purchasing a layshaft, aka intermediate shaft, from the AE101 Corolla which would bolt to the block. This would enable the driver side pod to sit closer to the hub making almost equal driveshafts and reduce torque steer.
To minimize the sag in the engine mount bushings i had wedged some washers in between the engine mounts and their brackets, then bolted it together. This also helped with the side engine mount going with gravity and not sitting in the tilted position i wanted. You may not understand unless you see it.
The gearbox mount was a little trickier as the original wasnt going to fit in the mini engine bay, so with the knowledge of others that have done this same project, i used a similar design to theirs. And with the engine sitting still, this was done quite easy in a few afternoons/nights. The design was simple, the actual mount would be bolted to the front of the subframe and the bracket would bolt to the previous gearbox mounting points and back to the new location of the subframe mounted engine mount. Because i was lazy i hadn't bolted the engine mount to the subframe. It was tack welded, then bolted later. Having to pull the engine out to bolt the engine mount to the subframe would of caused me a lot of emotional pain. If i were to do it again, i would of definitely bolted it first, then built the bracket around it as drilling the holes for the bolts in the subframe was a little difficult when trying to match them up to the mount nuts. The mounts have their own nuts / thread since you wouldn't be able to put a bolt through the front.
A few days later i was given the chance to work on my mini during work hours. This was a great opportunity to smash out the last rear engine mount. Going off the design of others, i produced something that was simple and very effective. As the saying goes "Why re-invent the wheel?".
The original engine mount was cut up slightly and would bolt to a piece of metal welded to the rear legs of the subframe. But before that i had to make up the bracket that would mount to the rear of the engine gearbox. The bracket used all the original points and is quite similar, but had to be made more slim and lower as there isn't a lot of room to play with. I figured that if i were to remove the subframe and remount the engine into the subframe out of the car, i wouldn't be able to get the alignment or tilt correct. So doing things the hard way i worked on the bracket and mount from underneath the car, lucky for me i had the on jack stands just high enough for me to slide in and out... just!
Note the terrible tack welding - it was blind welding, as i could only guess what i was doing.
Almost after 2 full days of work, the bracket was complete. One note to keep in mind is the more central the engine mount and bracket sit, the more it will affect how the exhaust pipes route under the car.
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