January 2006

Engine Mountings

The Tiger had been making some strange noises for a few (well maybe more than a few) weeks, basically you could feel the gearbox hitting the side of the transmission tunnel on occassions.

It also made the noises when going round corners, from this I deduced that the problem was something to do with the suspension, however trying to diagnose faults on a car that sits only two inches off the ground can be problematic at best. So I took the car down to Thorney and got Tiger to have a look at it.

Jim had the car up on the ramp and poked around under the car for a few minutes before locating the fault, one of the engine mount bolts had worked its way loose, as a result of the strain put on the other three the mount had bent and split on the weld. There was only one solution a new mount.

Now here is a piece of good news (nothing to do with car) but they have finally opened the new bypass, this means you can get from the factory to the parts department in under five minutes so about 15 minutes later I was back in the workshop with a new pair of mounts which Jim had offered to fit!

I think he regretted the offer though as it took him over an hour to get the mount onto the car because one of the screw holes was slightly out of position (does this sound familiar!), however I can report that the car now drives better and without THAT rattle annoying me.