Acura TL 200K DIY maintenance saga - Part 2 - Strip all the threads!

After working on getting the timing belt replaced on Saturday, we took a day off and resumed after work on Monday. 

I stopped by the Acura dealer and picked up two bottles of coolant because I realized that O'Reilly had sold me the wrong kind.  Then I returned the wrong coolant and instead picked up another work light, because I'd noticed that being able to see sufficiently down in the engine bay was problematic.  Hopefully another light would help.

For the timing belt, we were looking pretty good.  All that was left to do was reassemble all the parts removed to get to the belt.  We could probably get that all together and finish today, but... while we had the strut tower brace off, now would be a good time to replace the rear motor mount.

I had previously bought a set of five motor mounts and only got around to replacing the front mount (see previous Howto: Replacing Front Engine Mount).  The rear seemed like a huge pain in the rear so I was putting it off, and the others (side motor mount and front/rear transmission mounts) didn't seem too critical to worry about, but their time was now.

One thing to note: This set of motor mounts was around $120 for the *whole set*.  The dealer charges $250-$300 each for the front and rear mounts because they are pneumatically controlled.  After replacing the front mount the car vibrates noticeably more at idle, so it was obvious that it did not work exactly like the OEM part.  I had been pondering spending the dough for a real rear mount before I went to all the trouble to replace it, but in the end figured that costs money yo.  So the cheapie mount was going in (if I had it to do over again, I would try some other aftermarket versions available through O'Reilly or similar).

We acknowledged right off the bat that this by itself would probably take up the whole night, but it would be better to do it now than spend even more time in the future.  And were we ever right.  Getting all but two bolts off of the mount and the bracket was pretty straightforward, but there were two that really helped me practice my bad words and build character.

These two bolts had to be removed from under the car.  There was just barely enough room to get a small 1/4" drive ratchet on there.  This is the view from below, with the ratchet in place:

Exhaust to the left, exhaust to the right, and just enough room to get
a couple fingers on the ratchet.

There was barely enough room to fit my hand in there and move the ratchet a couple inches back and forth.  After a few back and forths the ratchet would slip off.  There isn't enough room to have a hand in there and see what you're doing, so I would have to take a peek at the situation, then put my hand up there and get the socket in place by feel, then ratchet a while.  The bolts didn't want to come out easily so it took a lot of force the entire length of the bolt.  When my arm was too tired to hold in that position, I'd scoot down and take another peek, and see that I had only backed out the bolt about 1/8", and these bolts are about 4" long.

We took turns and tried a few different tools and methods.  Finally, after lots of ratcheting, we got everything loose.  Since these mounts are pneumatically controlled, there is a hose that needs to be removed.  And again, it has to be done through this small access space with barely enough room for a hand.  And of course, it won't budge.  After yanking on it with all my strength for a while, it finally lets lose, but rips some of the rubber hose off when it does.  There is enough slack that I was able to snip it off a little shorter so the end was not jagged.

After a bunch of finagling, we were able to maneuver the mount around the back of the engine and up out of the bay.  It seems like there are around three hundred hoses running every which way that all catch and snag on the mount.  At first it seems like an impossible puzzle, but eventually all of a sudden it slips loose and out it comes.

Rear motor mount coming out.

Now we just need to put the new mount in.  Somehow the bracket that connects it to the engine has become wedged in a weird position and we can't get it into place.  Another issue exacerbated by not being able to clearly see what's going on and not being able to get hands on the part sufficiently because of the awkward access.  The extra work light did prove to be very helpful, and we did eventually get most of the bolts started.

The floor jack we used to support the engine while replacing the mount apparently has a leak, so over time the engine kept sagging back down and we'd have to give the jack a few pumps now and then to keep it up.  If it got too low we wouldn't be able to thread bolts in, or ones that had already been started would bind.

Again, those two difficult bolts from the bottom proved to be a real pain.  We switched off back and forth ratcheting them in little by little.  They actually didn't thread in very smoothly and required a lot of force, which was hard using the little 1/4" drive ratchet along with barely being able to get a couple of fingers on the handle.

I think we both eventually settled on reaching up in a position where we could use the palm of our hand, and we both ended up with a bruise on our palm that was sore for days afterward.

I can't imagine trying to do many of these tasks myself.  It's just so much better with two sets of hands, as well as two heads to think about how to solve problems.  For those of you that do all of your own work by yourself, my hat's off to you.

Brian taking his turn with the bolts from Hell.

Finally, we got all the bolts in place and tightened down except for the top bolt so we could still raise the engine to get the transmission mounts out.  Each transmission mount is mounted to the transmission with two bolts up top, and on the bottom has two threaded studs that go through holes in the subframe held by nuts underneath.

It's hard to make out but here are where the two mounts are, looking at the transmission from the driver's side wheel well with the wheel removed:

After removing the nuts and bolts we jacked up the tranny enough to get the mounts out and replace them with the new ones.  I put the bolts up top on, then got underneath and started to thread on the nuts.

Here's where I ran into trouble.  On one of the mounts, the nuts wouldn't really thread on no matter what I did.  I thought maybe there was some kind of coating on the metal making it a tight fit, and if I just muscled it on with a wrench it would work.  Brian sort of agreed with me, and that was enough for me to go for it.  It was late, and I just wanted to get this done.

I wrenched it on for a few turns and it was *very* hard to turn.  I told Brian "Well, I'm going to regret this" and muscled it all the way on.  It was so hard to turn I was sweating at the end, and felt like I had just done a set of bench press.  As I got close to home the nut started turning a little easier, and I thought it was finally seated perfectly on the threads and about to tighten down when all of a sudden it just started spinning in place.

I had completely stripped the threads, and now the nut wouldn't come back off, it would just spin.  Great!! Just great!  After pondering on what I had just done, I told my brother "Well, you know what my motto is, 'When in doubt, back it out'".  We both had a hearty laugh and I promised myself to try to actually make that my motto next time I'm about to do something stupid.

In the end we decided that leaving the mount in place for now would be fine until I could get ahold of a replacement.  I had no idea how I was going to remove the mount, since the nut wouldn't come off.  Also, the nut was recessed up inside the subframe so there was no way to cut it off.  I thought I might have to drill it out.

We packed it up and I went home and arrived after midnight.  We had worked about 7 hours.