Swapping the Motor Mounts on Your Jeep

It was 5 a.m. The predawn darkness was as black as only a moonless night in Baja can be. I was driving my 1974 CJ5-and-trailer combination up a steep trail. The transfer case was in low range and the engine was taching over 3,000 RPM. All of a sudden the loudest rattle I’ve ever heard drowned out the sound of the Jeep’s V8! All the gauges showed normal so I continued on up until I topped out on a saddle where I could park safely to find the cause of the noise.

Upon inspection, I found that the rubber in the left (driver’s side) motor mount had broken, allowing the engine to lift slightly when under torque. This in turn caused the fan to slice up the radiator shroud. We’d been on the trail about an hour after a sleepless night when this happened. And this was my first broken motor mount, so I remember it well.

We’d been camping in the Sierra de Juarez, somewhere between Mike’s Sky Ranch and Valle de Trinidad in what has since become Baja California del Norte. The coyotes had been trying to entice our dog Slicker (he’s standing in the CJ5’s window) to come out and “play,” which had kept all of us awake (myself, my wife Saraine, our daughter Kimber Lee, and sons Patrick and Chad) with their howling. We all finally realized we weren’t going to get any sleep, so we took a vote and it was unanimous that we pack up and head back to civilization. We’d been on the trail for about an hour when the mount broke.

Since the Jeep was only a few months old at the time, I had no expectation of losing a motor mount. They should have lasted for years. In other words, I learned a motor mount can give up at any time, and you should be prepared for it.

I’d accidently parked on a saddle overlooking the town of Colonia Lazaro Cordenas, which is in the Valle de Trinidad. While I was temporarily tying down the engine with some chain I’d brought along for emergencies, the eastern horizon began to appear. We could see oil lamps and electric lights coming on down in the valley, and smoke from the breakfast fires began to rise. We’ll never forget the mouth-watering aromas of garlic, beans, onions, and bacon that were mixed in those columns of wood smoke, rising to meet the morning sun.

All of these memories were brought back to me when I heard the Cherokee’s fan hit its shroud. Fortunately, this time we weren’t in the badlands of Baja, miles from the nearest pavement; we were just a few miles outside of Kingman on one of our favorite trails, and Ted Palfreyman was able to drive it home carefully.

The following steps can be adapted to almost any Jeep model’s motor mounts, with a few specific differences. However, the photos will show you what’s involved, regardless of model or engine type.

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