I am trying to help an elderly lady owning a low-mile 2003 Buick Park Avenue who freaked out when she saw oil on her garage floor. The leak is from the front transmission mount, that hamburger-bun-shaped mount on the drivers side just behind the radiator. This mount arrangement is of course common to many front-drive V6 GM sedans of that era so I know there has to be an answer as to how to remove/replace the mount. All I have seen for guidance is "support the engine/trans and remove the mount". Well, the mount itself has long threaded mounting studs top and bottom and it seems like it is trapped both in the frame and in the support bracket attached to the trans case. To free the mount once the retaining nuts are off those studs, it seems like you would have to jack the engine/trans assembly up so high you would risk damaging other mounts, wires/hoses, maybe other items. If the mount bracket could be removed from the trans case that would probably work, but the bracket is mounted on studs which effectively trap it as well. I could try double-nutting the studs for removal but don't know if that is going to work. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Regards, Ralph Boineau in central South Carolina

Take a look at this thread that I did a few months ago. Everything you need should be there. https://www.gmforum.com/showthread.p...ht=trans+mount

Hmm, thought I had more information then that. Oh well.

Put car up on ramps, and remove splash shield from bottom.
supprot transmission, use a jack with a 2x4 to spread out the load.
Remove the 3 bottom facing nuts.
Lift engine/trans a bit.
Remove bolts holding bracket to transmission.
If memory serves, there'* a hidden bolt holding this bracket, it'* also a bolt that holds the transmission to the engine. Remove this.
You should now be able to wiggle the mount out. Might need to lift engine/trans a bit.

I thank you for your time, Danthurs, but we are apparently talking about different mounts.I admit I am unsure what other GM sedans/years used this mount arrangement for the V6 engine/trans but I thought it was common to quite a few models and years. regards, Ralph
Boineau

Any chance you can get a picture of it? Also, not sure how a engine mount is going to leak oil. You sure it'* not a valve cover dripping down?

Thanks again, Danthurs. I don't have the capability to post a picture, I'm afraid. I don't have the car right now, but I looked very carefully at it and it certainly seems that it is the mount itself leaking. Apart from a couple of A/C (I think) lines above the mount nothing else seems to be capable of leaking in the mount area. I'll look again as soon as I get the car back. But I have now had supposedly knowledgeable mechanics tell me completely different things--one says the mount has no fluid, another says it does and they routinely leak. Perhaps some cars have a solid mount at that location and others, maybe as part of an option package, had fluid-filled mounts. I just wish I could hear from someone who has replaced the mount; hard to believe the engine/trans assembly has to be raised as far as it looks like it is going to have to be in order to replace.

It'* not that hard. You only need to rais it up about a inch or so to clean the bottom bolts, they are part of the mount. The lines you see there are trans cooler lines. I do recall some being fluid filled, but I don't recall which cars had those.

this the mount your talking about?

Thanks, Danthurs and Sawgunner. I managed to replace the mount without much trouble after I found that the fasteners securing the mount-to-trans case bracket weren't nutted studs but in fact were one-piece bolts looking just like studs with nuts. If they had been true studs they would have "trapped" the bracket in place even with nuts removed, but after finding out they were just weird bolts I was able to remove them, the bracket and the mount without jacking up the engine/trans assembly more than a fraction of an inch.

I was probably just gun-shy about jacking up the engine/trans; leaving the bracket in place and jacking enough to clear the mount studs probably would have worked without a problem but I didn't want to risk it as it was not my car and as anyone who has fiddled with cars knows, "stuff" happens.

The picture Sawgunner provided shows a bracket identical to the Buick I worked on, and the mount itself is similar but not identical (it does mount the same). Thanks again, Ralph Boineau in central South Carolina.

Glad ya got it done alright! thanks for the update! let us know if there is anything else ya need