Hey guys,

I was getting the, what I assume is common, grinding/bad vibration noise from the two motor mounts/torque struts being worn out. I replaced both of them. However, now the grinding is actually worse.

I should mention that I have replaced the top strut before and it fixed the problem. The problem came back again, so I replaced it again, and it fixed it again - however this time for only a few months. I suspect that because I did't replace the lower strut the first time it has probably been bad for a while. The top strut looked good still when replaced it today, however the bottom one was definately failed - badly.

I followed the alignment instructions from this post:

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/1791399-post4.html

I tried aligning it 3 times. Still no luck. I am assuming its probably the 3rd mount in the center of the motor. Is there a write up to do this one? It certainly looks like a pain but really not all that bad as long as there is enough room to back all 4 bolts out before hitting the motor. I am just hoping that you dont have to pull the motor to unbolt the mount from the engine bay.

As for the instructions above - it says to remove the splash guard. I assume that this is simply so that you can gain access to the bolts for the bottom strut. I did not remove this and got to the bolts just fine. Also it says to jack up the motor with a wood block on the bell housing. I jacked it up from a metal bracket right in that same area that it said to jack it up from. I couldn't really see anywhere else to do it, even with a block of wood. The vehicle did raise/lower with the jack - however the motor was definately shifting forward/back when the bolts were loose as well. The noise is very noticeable in the cab, but hardly noticeable from above the engine. If you listen underneath the car is is very noticeable again. The sound seems to be nearly gone when I put the car in reverse or go in reverse (I didn't really give it any gas in reverse, just let off the brake).

Anyways, any help with potential mistakes I made during replacement of the struts, anything other than that 3rd mount to look for, and a write up for the 3rd mount is all appreciated.

Also, there is only those 3 mounts right?

Cliffs:

Replaced both torque struts and tried aligning motor 3 times
Still getting grinding noise
Being in reverse makes sound seem to go away
Sound seems to be coming from the bottom of the vehicle and inside the vehicle - not so much from above
Looking for 3rd motor/transmission mount write up
Looking to see if I made a mistake or if theres anything else to look for that would cause these symptoms.

Thanks

 

There are 4 "mounts". Upper and lower torque strut. Trans mount. There is also a mount below the upper toque strut near the middle of the block that is a PITA to get out.

 

Yeah I was talking about the one in the middle under the upper torque arm. I finally just got it out - what a nightmare. If I had to do it again, now that I know the process, I could probably do it in about 1/4 of the time. Having lost my 3/8 ratchet and broke my 1/4 ratchet leaving me with a 3/8 breaker bar and 1/2 ratchet with no way to go into town to buy tools certainly did not help.

The car has 160k (or 180k?) miles on it. Since the timing belt is essentially all exposed now, Im just goin to go ahead and do the timing belt. What turned into an expected 30 minute job of changing the two torque arms is now an 8 hour investment so far and now I have to figure out how to replace my first timing belt! So much for yard work and relaxation on my 3 day weekend.

This is almost as bad as having to change out a turbo on a Ford Powerstroke (almost).

 

Lol 7.3 what a nightmare.

Yeah the first time I did my timing belt it took me a little longer than expected.

 

the timing belt job is a cake walk just use some pb blaster on the nuts and bolts, not the rubber parts the night before tear down

this was the link that makes its more comfortable
http://chronoscender.freeservers.com...imingbelt.html