Hey, put the energy suspensions poly mount in my car several months ago. I ran the plate for a week, then took the plate out due to suggestions on the board. It was a ton smoother.

Lately I've been having a weird clunk back and forth and vibration issues. I crawled underneath and checked the mount and saw this.



Now you can see the problem.

I'm on my way to buy another one right now. Any tips how to keep this from happening again? I torqued down everything to spec with loktite, but didn't re-tighten later. Could that have been it?

 

OK, well until someone can help me out with the above, I have another question. What'd you all torque the single bolt that goes into the trans mount. Not the ones that hold the bracket in place, the one that goes in the center. There isn't any specs with the mount or in my book. I think I just torqued the hell out of the past one, so maybe that's what did it. This time I went till it was really snug, but not until stop. Loktite of course.

 

looks like you tightened it too much......I just tighten it til its snug

 

So I guess I did the right thing this time. I just put that mount in back in February, only put about 5k miles on it. Wonder why they didn't put a warning on there.

 

Well, I have to break the damn mount in again but my previous problem went away. I was starting to have difficulty shifting gears, and had a vibration issue that went away when the clutch pedal was pushed in. One of the responses I got was that my flywheel might have been coming loose. Thankfully it was just the mount.

I'll link into this and update that thread I posted.

 

Put about 100 miles on it and the clunk is back. Maybe it's the opposite and it's not tight enough. Thinking about it, if there is any looseness the transmission will be able to slide a little back and forth. That kind of movement would have created the worn poly that is in my picture. I'm going to tighten it down pretty good and put some more miles down.

 

I Gotta wonder if this might be a problem with your motormounts causing extra stress on the tranny mount have you checked or replaced your motor mounts?

 

Possible. I just went with a prothane mount yesterday. I drove it around awhile and it loosened up a bit. I did mounts on my old car, but the shaking was noticeable. I don't get much vibration right now, but anything is possible. If I got to do the mounts I guess it's time to look into the rest of the front suspension since if I'm going to lift off the K-member at as well do all the crap I wanted to do.

 

So is it the motor mounts that prevent the transmission from moving backwards and forwards? I think that is what is creating the damage. I tighten it, and it's good for awhile but after a few days I get that thunk coming back again which occurs after I brake hard, reverse, or move forward, basically any change in force on the transmission. Not as bad as before, but I can see it happening again.

 

Hey Blackrat, I've just noticed some very similar clunking sounds from my A4 going forward and back similar to what you describe. It also does it down shifting... i'm going to have to get under and take a look at the mount as well... (Its a <1 year old stock mount though). FYI, I don't know if it could be related but I just noticed my trans fluid is a bit low. I fixed the leak yesterday and will hopefully drive the car to soon. Seems a long shot but given how the clunking was happening on the downshift too (just dropping it to 2 to decelerate) it may be related.

 

i was having alot of these same problems with my energy suspension as well... the major problem for me was that the mount is too short compared to the stock one. the oem part is like an .5-1'' taller than the energy suspension. i tried putting in some spacers under the mount between the crossmember to lift the trans higher, but eventually i just gave up and went and bought a stock one again.