More Escort problems I'm afraid. While pulling away at a traffic light yesterday (gently I might add!), there was a "clonk". the gear lever moved down and away from me by about 3" and the front of the car lifted slightly, but noticeably. Since then the gear lever has transmitted much more vibration than usual from the engine and continues to move downwards when taking up drive.
With the bonnet open, giving it a sudden rev causes the whole engine to pitch backwards by a 5-10° angle. Clearly an engine mounting has given up the ghost, but I cannot work out which one. There is one on the driver's side near the oil filter which seems OK, one on top the gearbox near the driveshaft which doesn't look "wrong" either and a third nestling under the air cleaner which also seems to be sound. Does one of these tend to go more than any of the others? Obviously I'm hoping to fix it cheaply myself, preferably soon before I damage the exhaust or the gearbox internals by continuing to drive it.
EDIT: The car is a 1.8 Zetec petrol with the IB5 manual transmission, October 97/R reg.
Last edited by: Dave_TD {P} on Tue 6 Apr 10 at 19:14
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Dave
A trolley jack and a block of wood can often show a failed engine mount. Lifting the engine - gently - should show a gap.
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Thanks screwloose :-)
The Haynes manual has it down as a fairly simple job to change one, I've never done one before but I'll give it a go...
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A bit more investigation has narrowed it down to the left-hand rear mounting - or to be more precise the bolt holding the mounting to the gearbox. The mounting itself looks to be a rather over-complicated affair, with a rubber doughnut at one end and a couple of "arms" splaying out to bolt to different parts of the bellhousing. If I'd have looked at it properly when it went on Sunday I'd have been able to work out a way of replacing the sheared bolt, but now I've managed to snap one of the "arms" as well :-(
My local friendly mechanic was snowed under with work today so he said to take it back in the morning and he'd see what can be done. Hopefully it will be a fairly cheap bodge job, as I can't afford anything more. A new mounting is £112!!! Because the arm has snapped, when I take up drive the engine moves so far out of true that the whole car shimmies along - I guess the inner end of the driveshaft is drawing circles in the air. Luckily the garage is only half a mile away so the locals will have to put up with me trundling along at 10mph in the morning whilst praying nothing else breaks.
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i would have said suspect sheared bolts but havent seen it for a few years
not the easiest mounting to do
can you not go second hand via ebay? for the arm
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Access is actually reasonably good once you take the air cleaner off, ebay? don't have any 2nd hand ones at the moment although its a fairly specific part to sell off a breaker. New ones on there are £48 plus shipping, trouble is i need the car saturday morning to pick my son up. Fingers crossed the mechanic can lash it together tomorrow and take a card payment over the phone off my dad or something...
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Ford Escort - 97 1.8 16v Engine mount gone - which one is it? - Screwloose
