Silentblock wide bush engine mounts - limited space for carburettor

While I'm busy blogging I thought I'd share a picture of my engine mount and how it physically contacts both my Jetex 22mm carburettor and my fast flow fuel tap. There literally isn't any room to spare between them.

I've done over 1000km with this setup and my early concerns about whether engine movement might cause some problems have come to nothing. Of course the carb moves with the engine and its mounts, but the fuel tap obviously doesn't.

Engine mounts

Probably one of the most difficult jobs on a Lambretta in my experience is removing and replacing the engine mounts. My technique was to use a vice, some heat, and to use the new mounts to drift out the old ones while fitting them. The only drawback is that it's difficult not to mark your new mounts with the jaws of the vice. My grandfather was a skilled metalworker for BSA, first making guns and then motorcycles, and he used to cover the jaws of his vice with lead when securing objects he didn't want to damage. This is probably a good tip if you're into pretty chrome bits on your scoot and you don't want to mark them.



In the above photo you can see the new mount being pushed into the casing, and two sockets being used as props to allow room for the old mount to be pushed out the other side. The flame of the blowtorch doesn't show up on the photo, but it is there. When heating the casing you don't need to move the flame around at all; just keep it focused in one place and the metal will do the dispersal for you, and very efficiently.

I had to put an extender bar on my vice handle and virtually hang my whole weight off it to get this to work, all the time worrying that I might be about to crack the casing or break the vice. In the end it went without a hitch.

If you have holes in the rubber part of your engine mounts, make sure they are positioned to the front of the bike. The mounts I used are the ones recommended by MB, part number MBL0162.