Honda Car Forum

I have a 1996 Honda Civic CX 3 door, AT, no ABS, not VTEC

I need to replace the engine mount that is just below the A/C.
The engine mount is unusual in that the spokes are very thin
(about 1/8 inch)and the hole in the middle of the mount is much
larger than the metal "spoke" (attached to the engine) that
goes through it.

There are two bolts that hold the mount to the frame. The nut
for the bolt closest to the rear of the car appears to be tack welded.
The bolt came out with no problems.

The second and last bolt is giving me much difficulty. I can't stop
the nut from spinning.

At first I thought that the nut should have been tack welded as the
first bolt's nut had been. The nut is not readily accessible as it is
inside of
what appears to be a box frame. There is a possibilty that one half of
the
box frame could come off but it is not obvious to me how that can
happen.

I am wondering,now, if that second nut was NOT supposed to be tack
welded. There is a second hole next to the bolt hole (for this second
bolt ONLY) in both the new mount as well as the old mount. The frame
has a matching hole, as well, for this second hole. So I can just
catch a glimpse of the nut if I hold
a light just right.

Perhaps I am supposed to do something using this hole as an access
hole
to stop the nut from spinning. But I can not understand how to make
use of
this access hole. There also appears to be an access hole on top of
the frame almost in line with the second bolt. However none of these
access holes are large enough to put a wrench in it or a socket of the
size required to hold the nut (I do not know the size but i do have
the first bolt and if the bolts
are the same size, then the nut must be larger than the bolt which
makes
both access holes too small for any type of socket).

I tried the old trick of putting tension on the bolt so that the nut
is
drawn to the frame which, in theory, would present a friction load
thus
preventing the nut from turning. But if it is working, it is working
very
slowly. I have managed to remove some of the bolt (about 1/8 inch),
but not
much.

I could attempt to cut the bolt, but I would still have the difficult
task
of figuring out how to put a new nut into the box frame. Maybe that is
what the access holes are about but it seems like a difficult way to
do things when all Honda had to do is tack weld the nut.

I think I am missing something here. There must be a reason why I am
having
difficulties.

Oh....I did try and remove the shield in the tire well, hoping it
would give
me access to the nut in the frame. But what I discovered was that the
nut is
boxed into a metal box frame. Perhaps the frame is really a U frame
with a metal cover making it appear to be a box frame. It looks like
that is a possibilty, but to remove it seems like alot of extra work
as there are other
components screwed into this "cover" (if it is, in fact, a cover for
the beam).

I appreciate the intelligence of Honda engineers. They are NOT dumb. I
suspect I am missing some important information.

Please....let me know if this situation is supposed to be this way
(nut not
tack welded) and if so then what is the procedure for removing the
bolt?
If the nut was supposed to be be tack welded, then does anybody have
any suggestions?

Thank you,

Bil