Finishing Kit

I have been very excited about getting this engine mount installed on the firewall, now that I have my engine on hand. So today I found some time and decided to go for it. I didn't get a lot of pictures of the process, just the final result. It's pretty straightfoward. There are already some existing holes in the firewall, and you line up the mount as close to these holes as you can. They aren't perfectly centered on the holes on the engine mount, but enlarging them to full size takes care of that.

I started in the upper left corner (right corner as you look at it in this view, from the front). I held the mount up to the firewall and looked through the holes to see how close it all lined up to the holes in the firewall. It wasn't perfect, but pretty close. Then, using 3/8" hardware and a 3/8" drill, I set the mount aside and drilled the first hole through the firewall. Using a 3/8" bolt, I snugged the mount up to the firewall, centering the bolt in the mount's hole as best as I could. Then I drilled the hole on the other side on top, and used another 3/8" bolt there. Once this one was snugged up, I drilled the right and left corners on the bottom, again, with the 3/8" drill, and used 3/8" bolts to snug it into place. It was now on the firewall pretty solidly mounted.

I used 2 more drill bits, and finally a reamer, to gradually enlarge each hole to full size, one bolt-hole at a time, and install the final hardware, then move to the next bolt. When I had the four corners done and the hardware snugged up, it was really solid! Then I went to the two center bolts on the bottom of the mount and repeated all these steps for those holes. Like most builders I've read about, there was a gap here between the mount and the firewall. For spacers, my local Ace hardware store has some nice stainless steel washers in stock that were just the right size, the right thickness, and the right hole size for these two locations. Perfect solution!

Once I had all the holes finished, I took it all apart, deburred and cleaned up all the shavings, and then re-installed it once again. The bolts aren't torqued down, they're just tight enough to hold it on for now. I'll be pulling the mount off to install things on the firewall before hanging the engine. But for now, my engine mount isn't laying around the shop anymore. It's in place on the firewall.

I think it looks pretty cool! One more task checked off the list. It makes me more anxious than ever to get the engine hung!

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