TL;DR – Replaced Trans mounts and one motor mount, poly filled them for a little stiffer feel. NO VIBRATIONS!!! Guy messed up my O2 sensor harness and tried to glue/calk it back together, replaced. Pics below.
Alright this may be a little winded.
Well it’s been about a week or so since the cheap, quick and dirty job transmission R&R. When I went to pick it up it was still on the rack and he was finishing up. I noticed he was squirting some calking under the passenger side before he let the car down. Took a mental note of it to check later and find what he was calking along with double checking all the bolts etc. to make sure things weren’t left off/loose.
I was informed by the guy that did the trans that the mounts were cracked/broken. Let him know I would take care of it. So I Ordered the “Anchor industries” mounts off amazon for around $45. Transmission: front, rear - Engine: side mount. Engine mount was cheap so I ordered it just in case, along with some 3M window weld urethane to fill them up and stiffen them. Let them cure for 4 days before I got underneath to install the mounts and give everything a onceover.
On the 2nd day of driving it since the trans work was done, my check engine light came on (haven’t had a chance to check things over yet). Had my scan tool in the trunk so I plugged it in and found that it was the dreaded P0420 cat below threshold code, weird never had that before. Pulled up the live data stream and the downstream O2 sensor had no reading. Flat lined on the oscilloscope, 0 volts. Another mental note to check the sensor.
Finally had time to get under the car last night and look everything over. I found 3 missing bolts from different harness tie down brackets, a small black cover on the rear of the transmission had the bolts only run in by hand. Found some bolts that fit for the harness brackets and cinched up the loose cover then moved on to check the torque of the bolts around. Almost every bolt I knew he touched was OVERTIGHTENED to the point where I needed to break them loose and torque to the proper foot pounds. He probably used an impact on everything he could. That’s not the bad part…
A few bolts were “glued” in and some were completely stripped out (Threads not heads) and looked like he tried to keep them in with just RTV! A couple were cross threaded that I had to muscle it out and re-tap. Ugh
Then I got to where he was squirting the RTV/urethane what have you. The O2 sensor pigtail was all kinds of jerry rigged. It seems that he broke the outer gray part of the connector O2 sensor side, fortunately. Basically he had the guts of the pigtail pushed into the connector on the vehicle side and squeezed a bunch of RTV into the connector to hold it in place! No wonder it didn’t work and threw a code. About 30 minutes of trying to disconnect it without breaking the vehicle side of the connector until it finally came unglued. I ran out and got a new Denso one and replaced it.
Got to the upper side of the engine and did the side motor mount which was completely broken and poured out a powdered rust upon removal, glad I got that one.
Drove it around, feels much better with these mounts. No real difference in vibrations with the poly filled mounts. Nice and smooth, shifts without clunks and it doesn't slam into gear as it engages. Downstream O2 is reading properly.
Overall with how much I spent on everything it still came out over $2000 cheaper than taking it to a shop around here just to do the trans.
Alright enough complaining. Here are some pics.
Thanks for checking out my adventure. It was a doozy.
O2 sensor glued in:
Broken rear trans mount - New/Old:
Front trans mount – New/Old:
Engine side mount – New/Old:
Old engine side mount broken powdered rust:
RTV bolt – Tried to zoom after I took the shot
No, glad things worked out. Check the fluid level if you haven't already, make sure it's good. Hope it lasts you a long time.
I have a feeling it will be harder to stop searching than it was to quit smoking... lol.
