You don't. LOL. That's what confused me for about 10 minutes. You just put the inserts in place over the existing ones.

 

Thanks for the reply, OG. Instead of sitting here waiting for replies, I went back out to futz with it and figured I'd try and fit them in as is... and they fit perfectly.

What doesn't fit is the torque arm with inserts back into the bracket on the frame. There shouldn't be any trimming required on these, should there? The arm was a very snug fit before the inserts and now it just will not fit back into place.

Any thoughts?

 

I just drove the arm back in with a soft mallet, moved the motor easily by hand (it just hangs there in balance) to line the bolts up, and tightened it back down.

 

No trimming needed. Yes the fit is tighter. Might try a bit of WD-40/grease/soap??? and a rubber mallet to tap it back into place.

 

Unfortunately, this is going to have to wait until at least tomorrow at this point... need to be out and about so I bolted it back together (at least I got to break in my new torque wrench!).

I also may wait until I can get a few minutes in my friend's shop and use his lift; a whole lot easier than working on your back. At least I now know how easy the process is.

 

Finally had the time and cooperation of the weather to try this again. Nice, simple installation of an inexpensive mod that yields immediate, noticable, positive results. Want Proof?


Here's the inserts with the packaging as they came from Outmotoring. The NM tag unfolds into a copy of the color installation .pdf


The torque arm is located not far from the front of the car, a little to the passenger side of the center line. In this shot, you can see my rachet driver hanging down from one of the bolts.


Here's a shot of the torque arm before anything has been done. The rachet is on the bolt that attaches to the subframe, and you can see the bolt head that attaches to the engine. Both bolts are 16mm.


With the subframe bolt removed and the engine bolt loosened, the torque arm will hang like this. I was able to complete the installation with the arm like this - very tight fit with the exhaust pipe for trying to remove the other bolt. The inserts simply fit onto each side of the arm - with the way they are formed, there is only one way for them to go in, and as stated a few posts up, nothing is removed. One insert went in perfectly, but the other one just did not want to seat right in one spot - I used a c-clamp to press the insert in all the way (unfortunately that shot did not come out)


I sprayed a bit of WD-40 on the outside facings of the inserts and the bracket of the subframe. With the assistance of a rubber mallet, I was able to tap the arm back up and into place, as the above shows. All that needed to be done at this point was to tighten the bolts - use a torque wrench to get them to 80 fps.

That's it! Job took me 15-20 minutes, including the time to take the pics. As has been mentioned, the one negative of this product is a very slight noise/vibration when the car is at idle... to make the point, I thought I was just imagining it at first. My wife has been in the car a few times since I installed the inserts and hasn't noticed any difference, so there really isn't much to it.

What there is, is a nice reduction in engine motion and an increase in how quickly the car responds to the accelerator. It was most noticable on a slow take off from a stop - occasionally I nearly stall if I give too little gas from a dead stop, but no longer. The response is much more immediate now. I've only had the inserts in for two days now, but I love the feel and responsiveness they add to my MINI.

 

hmm, I've read a few threads on this....looks like I need to do this mod ASAP

 

That's a good how too

 

Dang I so need to do this, man I'm a lazy ***

 

I just found when putting torque arm back in, pull the engine to the front and same time align torque arm to bolt hole on subframe, it will just slide into place. No need to use mallet or any force.

I did got a little more vibration, will report back in few weeks if anything changes. So far I'm really enjoy this easy mod.

ug.

 

I love mine. IMHO, a car should buck and shudder and shake. Even then the car is very sedated with this mod.

 

Just did the torque arm insert yesterday, I think I feel a change in responsiveness when I hit the accelerator quickly. I also got a little more vibration in the car, but I suppose that is normal due to the tighter fit.

 

Put mine in after I changed the oil yesterday evening. I took it for a drive and felt the difference right away! WOW!

 

I gotta put mine in, just lazy.
Had it for months now and havent done it.

 

I just did mine this past Saturday, and expected to have an easier time. I only removed the one bolt supporting the side that the inserts go into. The first difficulty was getting the arm back into place, due to the sharper edges of the inserts. I think they should be beveled to make putting it back into place easier. The second issue was getting the bolt to find the threads on the other side. I luckily have a little camera and remote screen that allowed me to see how far off the alignment was. I finally got it after 20 minutes (which seemed like an eternity), battling the still-warm engine.

Definitely suggest working on a fully cooled engine, but I couldn't wait, and this was the only block of time I had all weekend that I wouldn't need to drive, and there would be sunshine outside.

I all-encompassingly recommend this, shift and acceleration feel are much improved, evidenced by chirping the tires in 3rd gear.

 

Based on everything I've heard about this mod, ordered the inserts last week and just got done attempting to install them. And I do mean attempting.

My car-guy son is in town, and we've done a ton of wrenching together, so figured this would be a fun little half-hour job. Nope! At the moment, my new Roadster is a big expensive paperweight.

Once we had the bolt backed out of the threads, the shear force on that bolt made it pretty much impossible to remove completely. After a lot of effort to relieve the force, and no luck, I'm now in the "just get the d*mn bolt back in" mode.

The thread end of the bolt is about one diameter away from where it needs to be, and we can't get it aligned for love or money.

Applying as much force as either of us can (pushing back on the oil pans with feet braced against a workbench) moves the motor a little, but merely takes some of the flex out of the stock bushing - bolt moves not at all. Nothing to show for that other than a sore knee.

Any and all ideas appreciated. Not looking forward to flatbedding it to the dealer so I can pay them to put a freakin' bolt back in.

Don

 

Did you remove/loosen both bolts? Is there a possibility that you have it reversed?

Mine came off easily and went right back into the same place. I think I used a big screwdriver and levered it just a bit to make the final placement. I remember thinking that the whole job could be done in less than 15 minutes. The hardest part was finding my 16mm wrench.

 

Originally loosened the motor bolt a few turns, and tried to removed the frame bolt.

Plan B was to try and remove the motor bolt as well, but at this point that has just made things worse - it's not all the way out, and we can't get it out OR back in due to interference from the exhaust.

About ready to removed the v-clamp so we can at least get *that* bolt back in place.

If it sounds like everything I'm doing to make it better is making it worse you have an accurate picture. It's like a sitcom at this point.

Here's a question that occurred to me a bit too late - are the success stories manual transmissions, and the "it was difficult" stories (not as bad as mine so far) from those with automatics?

Don

 

Nope - mine is an automatic.

 

I'm wondering, is the coupe different underneath from the sedans and clubbies?

One other thing I thought of, you might get in the car and take the transmission out of "park" for a second to see it perhaps the arfm is on a bind from parking it before you took things apart. My motor/transmission moves around pretty easily from the underside, but if its somehow in a bind because of the parking pawl, it might need to be released.

Just a thought. I hate hearing that you're having these issues. TZhe installation is really very simple. Way does it in minutes at the various events like MOTD and stuff. I've seen it done in a parking lot during Mini takes the States.

 

You, sir, are a genius. And/or I am an idiot.

That was it!

Doh!

Took it out of park and things move quite freely now. Haven't put the bolts back in yet but the motor rocks easily (as reported), and the bolts slide freely as well.

I owe you more than one...

Thanks,
Don

 

Might have to check that out. BTW (me a MINI newbie), what is a "justa" ??

 

Not sure what's going on, had one installed today at a mod party took no longer that 10 minutes.

 

A non-s cooper

 

That's about all the time this one would have taken as well, if the engine wasn't torqued due to being in park. Up on ramps, and pretty sure I put the parking brake on and *then* shifted into "park" as usual, but either I didn't or there was some stress anyway.

All fixed now!

Don