engine mounts/ steady bars HELP!!
Turbo Mini Forums

my girlfriend's mini has a problem.
when you accellerate you can hear a thudding noise form the engine bay, and her exhaust pipe keeps coming loose and blowing, it also fell off a couple of months ago.
i suspected that the steady bar bushes/ engine mounts were gone, so we took it to the garage.
they say that it is because a steady bar is missing from the bottom of the engine. it is apparently a long bar running from the under the flywheel housing going straight to the front of the front subby.
i am not convinced that this is the problem because my car doesn't have a bar there and i don't have that problem, i was also under the impression that the lower steadies faced rearwards not forwards.
the upper bar bushes look ok, they are not crumbling or anything but you can see movment there if you rock the engine with your hands.
anyway thats the situation.
what do you guys think?
1) it is casued by this lower bar being missing
2) the engine mounts are gone
3) the steady bar bushes are gone.
how do i check the engine mounts because i don't have a clue, i just don't believe the garage's explaination.
cheers,
DAN :)
i know this should be in help needed but i wasn't thinking!
sorry!

Edited by clubman_dan on 29th Jun, 2004.

Some minis are fitted with a steady bar that goes from the gearbox to the subframe, but it dont think it was fitted to all of them. What year is it?

Anyway, you can get an extra steady that fixes to the thermostat housing, often called an Ultimate Engine Steady IIRC. That sorted out this problem on one of our cars.

its a 1987 mini 998.
it already has an ultimate engine steady!!
i really think the engine mounts have gone but i don't know how to check.
on my car the lower steady goes from the back of the gearbox on the passenger side and mounts to the subframe just under the passenger side footwell.
the bar the garge say is missing goes from under the flywheel housing the the front of the front subframe behind the front panel apparently

i am also sure that not all minis had these lower steadies, mine didn't until i got a new engine

Our '86 mini has a front steady, there is a bracket that fits to the front right hand side of the gearbox and then a bar to the front of the subframe. I don't think there's ever been one that fits to the flywheel housing.

yeah thats the one i mean

so do you think it makes any difference considering some minis have none and don't suffer the same problems?

Does make a bit of difference, but i'd have thought if you had the ultimate steady this would have prevented it from moving too much.

I'd try fitting one of these, a second hand ones gotta be pretty cheap. Fit some new bushes to it and the normal engine steady bar as they're only a few quid. Easier to try this first than replace the engine mounts and an extra engine steady isn't a bad thing.

I run with a single top engine steady (as in the standard dog bone), no lower ones and with new engine mounts each side and new dog bone rubbers and have no problems whatsoever. Plus im not nice to it either, thats an mg metro running 75bhp.

Id just change the mounts.

Ill be running more mounts on the turbo but i ran a std turbo the same way with only a dog bone and it never gave me any grief, cordantium is still running the car and its given no worries.

ill also be trialing just using the dog bone.

Previous Engine: 1040cc Morespeed engine, 1275 turbo head T2 Turbo Mirage Manifolds Megajolt
Previous engine: STD metro turbo, megajolt
Drives: 399bananahp (flywheel) Honda Civic Vtec b18c4 T28 Turbo 1968 Mini

Megajolt maps to download: http://www.jamesfawcett.co.uk/cms/index.ph...&gid=3&Itemid=3

I'd say get new standard engine mounts (there pritty cheap) and deffo new engine steady bushes. Powerflex ones are good.

http://photobucket.com/albums/y139/Skinns46/

i think we'll just have to change the mounts and the steady bar bushes and see what happens then.
cheers fro all the help!
DAN :)

Dont know if you mentioned, but does that engine actually rock when you push it backwards/forwards? If its same problem as i had anyway the top mounts were pants, and the exhaust had hit the bulkhead at some point, leaving it bent, so when accelerating it hit the floor pan even with new mounts.

Previous Engine: 1040cc Morespeed engine, 1275 turbo head T2 Turbo Mirage Manifolds Megajolt
Previous engine: STD metro turbo, megajolt
Drives: 399bananahp (flywheel) Honda Civic Vtec b18c4 T28 Turbo 1968 Mini

Megajolt maps to download: http://www.jamesfawcett.co.uk/cms/index.ph...&gid=3&Itemid=3

yeah thre is some movment when you grab the rocker cover and rock it back and forward, you can see it at the end of the steady bar. do oyu think it might just be the bushes??

Yes you can try replacing the bushes first. If that fixes it your alright. but in my case because the engine was moving so much the engine mounts got twisted and fell apart.

http://photobucket.com/albums/y139/Skinns46/