I'm trying to make a Mk1 comfortable and reasonably quite for long distance travel. There was a lot of vibration inside the car, with the instrument needles bouncing up and down. I've changed the engine mountings and this has certainly helped.
I'm now looking at the front subframe mountings, on this car the subframe is bolted directly to the fiberglass both front and back. Is this normal? I've purchased new mounts and was just blindly going ahead to fit them. The front teardrop mounts would be no problem, as I would just manufacture brackets to suit what ever position the ended up.
The rear mounts to the floor have more implications if I add them. I would be move the subframe down and forward slightly, moving the axle line, down and forward, possibly giving more wheel clearance, stopping the tyre contacting the rear of the wheel arch. The other challenge is how will this impact on the tower bolt connection, will I have to put a spacer between the top of the subframe tower and the bulkhead cross member?
I also have the small replacement coil springs to fit in place of the rubber cones, but I will report on this after I've fitted them next week hopefully.
The engine mounts I purchased were the ones with the Rivnuts fitted to them, My advice is don't use these ones as they created allsorts of work. The supplied bolts were tight in the threads, which made the Rivnuts spin. I had to remove them, tack weld the Rivnuts and tap them out to 8 X 1.25 and fitted them with stainless bolts. But I got there in the end, after much cursing!
A better solution which I used years ago is to weld nuts on to the standard engine mounts. I'm also interest on any ones thoughts on adjustable front shock absorbers, As the ones fitted to the car will be at least 37 years old.
Alan D.