GearJammin

I am in the middle of changing my steering rack. I started putting the new one on and couldn't for the life of me get the bolt holes to line up. When I realized the engine, yup, the friggin engine was preventing the rack from sitting in place I checked the old rack. Sure enough it was bent and had grooves on it from where the engine was invading its space.
What in the world causes that and can it be corrected? Also what is the common clearance between the rack and engine? I'm searching for pics and it looks like everyone else has at least an inch between them.
Please help

blk&blu*j

iTrader: (1)

I would start looking at the motor mounts.

GearJammin

well this is becoming a miserable experience. Im trying to replace the motor mounts and nothing is aligning. Its like they're not supposed to go in there. My motor is from a 94 GS and my car is a 92 SC. I can't find anything that says they're not the same but they just don't seem right. Anyone know what the letter "D" on the bracket means. I'm grasping at straws trying to see if something was done half @ssed when the motor was replaced.

mak89

iTrader: (6)

Did you swap oil pans? the gs300 vvti has a front oil sump pan apposed to the sc300 which is rear

GearJammin

i cant answer that because i have no clue what to look at. I had nothing to do with the swap and only learned the it was a 94 when i was dumbfounded by the 11 hole /10 hole water pump deal and got the vin off of the block.

Ali SC3

iTrader: (10)

wait you are saying you had the GS motor bolted in already? or you are trying to bolt in a gs motor?
yeah with the wrong oil pan its not going to get anywhere close to bolting up.
you need to take the oil pan and pickup dipstick etc.. all off the old motor and swap it onto the new one.
also I believe the oil filter mounts are different you may not clear with the GS oil filter mount, it needs to be swapped out with the SC one if thats the case. also not sure if the mount brackets are the same on GS and SC, but you should be using all that stuff off the sc motor if you have them. all 92-94 v8's are definitely non vvti.

GearJammin

ok i don't see any front oil sump pan

GearJammin

GS motor is bolted in already. Not by me and not recently. I don't even know if the guy I bought it from knew it wasnt the original motor. It always had a steering issue and I decided to finally fix it by changing the steering rack. It turns out the motor is sitting on the steering rack, so much so that the new rack wouldn't fit. Hoping the motor mounts were to blame I picked up a new pair and ran into more problems. The new mounts were a bear to get in and won't sit on the mounting surfaces so I'm starting to wonder if the brackets are wrong. All of the sc brackets that I'm finding are marked RR Z or LF Z but mine are marked EX<-D and IN->D??? It's making me wonder if finding a new pair of sc mounts will solve everything

1JZPWRD

iTrader: (59)

You might have the wrong mounts my friend. Find the ones that have the same stamped mark on them.