Jeep Articles / Technical and Installation (Transmission Mount Replacement)

Transmission Mount Replacement

Article written by Moab Man

Date Added: 06/15/2008

Bouncing is BAD! You have probably noticed most breakage while wheeling is preceded by a good suspension bounce or two.

This bouncing includes not only full throttle, tire hopping assaults at obstacles, but also includes the more subtle bouncing that occurs within the Jeep?s drivetrain when the motor and transmission mounts are worn out. This bouncing, while much less dramatic, can still be plenty to cause driveshaft binding, or worse crack a transmission or transfercase housing. So when you do snap that axle or pretzel that drive shaft, we hope you at least put on a good show.

To avoid costly and possibly extensive repairs, we opted to only spend $35 to replace our transmission mount and avoid the aforementioned driveline damage.

Installation

1. Chock the wheels, set the parking brake, and leave the Jeep in gear or Park (automatics).

It's very important the vehicle does not move. Once the skid plate is removed, there is no driveline support other than the jack.

2. Unbolt the four transmission mount bolts from the bottom of the skid plate.

3. Using a block of wood to avoid metal-to-metal contact damage, support the weight of the transmission in front of the transmission skid plate.

4. Support the belly pan or skid plate with a floor jack.

5. Unbolt the six skid plate bolts from the frame.

6. Lower the floor-jack while controlling the skid plate.

7. Due to the corrosion of the transmission mount bolts, we hit them with a shot of PB Blaster and took a 20 minute lunch break.

8. Here you can see our removed skid plate and the clean patches in the middle where our new transmission mount will go.

9. After the 20 minute soaking, the nuts broke free relatively easily and we removed the transmission mount from the tranny.

10. Here you can see new mount (left) with the old one (right). The bent bar is from a t-case lowering kit we had on briefly which contributed to the breakdown of the rubber mount.

11. Once the transmission skid plate is in place, the bolts that attach the mount to the bottom of the transmission are not accessible. For this reason we added a bit of Loctite to the threads.

12. There is no front or back to the new mount, so just put it in place.

13. Tighten the nuts.

14. Put the skid plate back on the floor jack and lift it into place. Sure you can do it by hand, but why, when using the jack makes it so easy.

15. Once the skid plate is seated in place, torque the bolts to 45 ft lbs.

16. Bolt the transmission mount to the skid plate.

Installation Issues

If you wheel your rig, particularly in the rocks, most likely your Jeep?s skid plate is no longer very straight. Ours is so misshapen that when we bolt one side on and go around to the other side, the bolt holes aren't even visible through the skid plate.

In addition to pounding the skid plate as straight as possible; we found raising the skid plate close enough to the frame to start all six bolts and then allowing the bolts to draw the skid plate into place worked great and provided proper alignment.

Final Thoughts

Replacing the transmission mount has stopped the bucking of the transmission we were experiencing, but as one repair tends to reveal another problem, next we will be replacing the motor mounts.

Purchase / Vendor Info

Vendor Name:	Autozone
Address:	Local Purchase , UT
Website:	http://http://www.autozone.com/home.htm

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