With the basic cradle completed, it was time to give it a good scuffing and apply some primer. I used a self-etching primer by Dupli-Color that has the unfortunate characteristic of being army olive drab:
It's pretty stinky stuff too... definitely need a respirator for this stuff. I didn't attach the front hydraulic mount to the cradle, instead choosing to leave it on the engine bracket. Here's the top view:
And here's proof these mounts really are hydraulic in nature... my inexpensive mounts turned out to be cheap in more ways than one. Look closely and you'll see hydraulic oil dripping from this one:
At last I was finally ready to hoist the powertrain in place and see how far off my drawings were from reality. Here's the powertrain about 6 inches from landing in its new home:
... and touchdown!
The mounts lined up perfectly and everything fit like a glove. This next photo shows the opposite side of the cradle and powertrain:
The next three photos show close ups of the three mounts starting with the forward engine mount:
This is the aft engine mount showing how I left room for the axle to pass between the mounting legs and the engine block:
And finally, the aft transmission mount securely in place:
One of the last two areas to check was the clearance between the end of the transmission and the cradle side rail on the driver's side. The closest the two came to each other was approximately 15 mm at the threaded boss on the transmission (on the right). Plenty of clearance! The rest of the transmission sits well above the frame.
At the other end of the powertrain, there was never any fear that the pulleys would interfere with the side rail simply because they sit much higher up. I did, however, want to check that the engine was square with the cradle and this shot pretty much summed it up:
The next challenge was to design the trailing link mounts, so back to the drawing board!