After I took the motor out of the car, I got to looking at one of the brackets that I made. This bracket is simply in place to hold the motor the proper distance off of the sub-frame so that the drive-line lines up correctly. Here's a shot of the bracket:
It may be ugly, but it works fine. Here's a shot of it in place:
You can see it resting there just on the top of the sub-frame. In fact, you can see that the holes in the bracket line up with the holes in the sub frame. What that allowed me to do was wrap a piece of steel around the motor and tie it down to the sub-frame so that it can't go anywhere. Now that is not the primary motor mount. There were brackets in place that tied the motor directly to the old motor mounts to prevent the motor from rotating under torque. The strap just held it down to the bracket.
Anyway, the reason I'm showing you this, is because when I took it all apart, I got to thinking that this particular support might be better as a piece of hard rubber, rather than steel. I'm just thinking that a certain amount of give, which would help cushion the motor from bumps and what not, might be better. I don't think this had anything to do with the motor's failure, but if I can make life for the motor any easier, why not.
When I say hard rubber, I'm thinking of something like the heel of a men's dress shoe. So my question to all of you is do you have any suggestions of where I might find a piece of hard rubber that's about 1" by 2" and roughly 12" long? Many of the things that have gone in the car I've used in a way that wasn't intended by the manufacturer. I've had to be creative. The trouble is, I just can't think of anything that has that type of rubber in the size I need. If you have a suggestion, post it in the comments. I'd be very appreciative.
2 comments:
Three thoughts come to mind:
Old farm/construction vehicle tires. Some of them have thick treads about that size that are flexible enough for you to put in place and could be cut to the right shape.
Also, some sort of home made composite using layers of more common tires.
Finally, some of the home and garden vehicle tires (lawn mowers, wheel barrows, grils) have solid rubber tires that have the same qualities you are looking for.
Is wheelbarrow one word or two?
I think the lawn mower tire is the one. I went to Lowes and found they had a 14" spoked, hard rubber tire for $15. A section of that should do the trick.
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