The bushings in my brown dog motor mounts are completely toast. Splitting and wallowed out. I guess that means it's time for me to rebuild my mounts. On their site it says you need a 10 ton press to rebuild them, but I'm not sure why. It seems to me you would just drill, beat, pry, or whatever the old bushings out and throw the new bushings in the freezer then lube it up and slide it in. Any ideas why I would need a press?

 

Thats why lol...their not going to post om their site that they recommend you just beat them out and beat them in. If someone screws something up that way, they can just say well hey we sid say you needed a press.

how long did they last?

 

I had the rubber mounts and they lasted a touch over 2 years (got the January 2016), but I also beat the **** out of my Cherokee. It's got a lot of hard offroad miles, a few jumps, lots of hard slider hits, and pot hole filled South Carolina road miles. Didn't really keep track of miles very well back then, but found a picture from February of 2016 and it there was 140,000 on the odometer and now there's 167,000ish so almost 30,000 miles (odometer is right for 31s and I have 35s so it's all approximate).

 

Here's the driver's side mount
Edit: Now that I'm looking at that picture. Looks like I have a cracked exhaust manifold.... again....

 

A ball joint press or even a bench vise is good enough to get the new ferrule on the passenger side mount, that's all you need it for. The driver's side doesn't have one. Just 2 bushings and a metal sleeve; apply a little lube and slide it all together.

 

What's the ferrule?

 

It's the little steel ring that holds the passenger side together. On the driver's side, the metal ends are pretty much flush with the bushings and slide right into the brackets. On the passenger side, the mount is slightly shorter, so the sleeve sticks out the front a bit and the ferrule holds it together and acts as a spacer so that it can spread the load out against the bracket when tightened. It's a very tight fit (maybe slightly tapered) and takes a bit of force to get it to seat flush.

You can see it on the left here: http://browndogindustries.com/images...720K2Crop1.jpg

 

You got it the other way around. The driver's side get that one.

 

Is it? Been awhile since I did mine; didn't look like there was room for it in that pic. In any case, that's the only reason some sort of press is suggested. Could probably do it with a bottle jack against something really heavy.

 

is it indeed cracked? if so, would it suffice to say that a more ridged motor mount is not the answer to cracked manifolds?

 

They are the answer until they go bad.

 

if that’s the case, how does a stock mount last for a decade+? by that logic, shouldn’t a mount costing $10x more at least last that long?

 

I think the reason the mount didn't last long was the fact that I wheel my Cherokee very hard and I chose the soft rubber style versus the stiffer poly style. I also didn't follow the install instructions very closely the first time I installed them (they suggest using washer and making sure at least one can spin freely so the mounts aren't too tight) but i didn't have washers and had already removed the first mount before realizing all of this so just tightened them the best I could guess. Another theory that just popped in my head is maybe the rubber is beat up harder since there is so little in performance mounts and so much in factory mounts.

 

has this been the case for other Brown Dog mount owners???
early failure?

 

I couldn't find any threads on any forums about rebuilding them. Not sure if that means much though.