My First Street Rod

Hello again! The last time we talked I had bought and installed the Macgyvers front crossmember. I had tacked the crossmember into place but didn’t tack in the Hats. This is mainly because at the stage the truck was at, it didn’t really need them in there. Well we will get to the Hats, but first I want to get to the engine mounts. My Dad and I thought, how could we build a set of motor mounts for my truck that would not only look great, but actually work as a set of engine mounts. We thought, what way would there be to research how an engine mount should be designed then by looking at any GM automobile on the face of the planet. The motor mounts in a GM car aren’t designed to hold the engine up with a bolt, the bolt is just there to make sure the engine doesn't go anywhere. Instead, the motor mount cushions up against the engine like when you put the palms of your hands together to clap. The GM bracket that bolts up to the engine has a fused piece of rubber in it, the mount in the frame that the bracket sits on cushions up against that same rubber. I wanted to follow those same designing outlines, but make it a heck of a lot nicer looking. In order to start drawing out the mounts and cutting them out of the steel we had to set the engine in the frame in its proper place. If you remember from the last article, when the fenders where on the truck we set the rad in and drew a line vertically down the frame where the rad sat. Now that we have the engine sitting in the frame we know how far back to put it so it doesn't run into the front of the rad. We also know how far up or down to put it in the truck because we have our crossmember in. I wanted to put the engine as low as I could possibly put it, this is mainly to lower the center of gravity. I don’t want the truck to sway when turning corners, although an anti-sway bar would clean up most of the problem, I want to make it less of a issue. Before we got the engine into the frame we went around it and leveled it on the jack stands, this is so we could get the engine sitting back a true 5 degrees in the frame. This is a standard measurement in all GM cars. They do this for two reasons, One: the carburetor sits forward on the manifold 5 degrees, so when you tilt the engine back it levels it out and two: This is probably the most important reason, when you have the engine lined up straight with the drive shaft, and the drive shaft lined up with the rear end and its all on the same angle, the U joints on the ends of the driveshaft don’t get worked and they crap out easier. So now that we got our engine exactly where we wanted it I made some measurements, drew them up on a template and transferred them onto steel.
 

	This is my 2x4 3/16 wall rectangular piece of steel I used for the Motor Mounts.  You can see the design drawn out on it.
	Here are the motor mounts cut out ready to be welded together and put in the truck.  When I mentioned earlier how the mount should cushion up against the engine, you can see how this will work on the little end of the mount.

The steel we used was 2x4 3/16" wall and I gave the Motor mounts a triangular design for looks. Since we had the engine just where we wanted it I held the Mounts in place while Dad put tacked them to hold them there.

After we were finished tacking them in place we lifted the engine up a bit and completely welded them in. While we where letting the mounts cool off we decided to start to tacking in the Mustang II Hats. This wasn’t very hard at all really, all we did was find the center of the hat and line it up with our center line that we used for the Crossmember. (Of course we remembered that there is a difference between the Left side and the Right side)
 

Here is the motor mount tacked in place and the Mustang II Hat ready to be welded in!

During the process of all of this building we managed to find a complete Mustang II front end already cut out of the car. This guy was building a Model A 2 door and learned about the Mustang II front ends and how they are the way to go these days. Well the reason he sold it to us was because he had learned a little while later about Heits Tubular front ends, We won’t go there!!! So we got it home, stripped it down, and now that we got our hats on, we bolted the Mustang II stuff to my frame. The Motor mounts are also done!!! We propped the Transmission up with a milk crate so it wouldn’t fall down and then we lowered the engine into its final resting place. Looks Great!!! Next time in the Foothills Kruzin’ I’ll talk about building the Firewall and briefly mention about taking out the original rear suspension. So until next time...
 

	Here is the Mustang II Hats, Crossmember, Upper "A" arm, and Engine mount. Now you can see how the squareness of the Engine mount follows the lines of the crossmember.
	Well there it is, the truck can sit up on its own now in the front end while supporting the engine!!! This is an awesome accomplishment that really enthuses you about continuing on!

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,Part 4, Part 5