exhaust

[latief]

when changing neon engine mounts (load bearing mounts), you have to raise and lower the engine at some steep angles, are we supposed to loosen up the exhaust or something?

yesterday, i took apart my car trying to change load bearing pasenger side engine mount. it was a nasty job, especially since you need to remove the engine mounting plate which has some big screws tucked in, and the only way to access them is to raise the engine from the passenger side at a very steep angle....any how, i was very carefull, since i've done the tranny mount before and i know how tricky it is, yet this time, the engine was at a really steep angle and i could tell that there was some tension on the exhaust ...

to make things even worse, i bought the new mount a while back off this forum, it was an srt mount, and i thought it was identical to the neons mount, well it was except that the through-bolt on the srt is a tad thicker, something i learned the hardway after the job was nearly done (it took me 5 hours to do this) ...there is no way to change the bolt only since it will not go into the mounting plate...so i had to tightin everything up despite the play in the bolt hoping that it will work somehow... i aligned the engine according to specs and everything looked like it worked...... well at least i thought so !!! after i was done i turned on my car, every thing seemed fine untill i got inside the car, there is this rattling noise and noticable vibration, i think that either the through bolt is moving inside the mount, or that something is going on with the exhaust ......


so lesson learned is, SRT passenger side mount will not work with regular neon....

the worst part about all this is that i will have to do this again this week.....


can anyone tell me what to look at/ or how to diagnose if i have exhaust clearence issues? and should i loosen the exhaust next time i do the job?

thanks,