The motor mounts are some of the most complicated fabrication I've never done. I bought a SWAG off road bandsaw table and Milwaukee band saw and the thing is awesome. I could not have built the front motor mounts without it and will do 75% of what I've been using the plasma cutter for - and better.
For those reading along who are new to fabricating, I want to say that I had dozens of different ideas about how to do the mount on the very front of the motors.
First was to go to the frame, like a traditional crossmember, but I realized the axle would be right there. When I got the motor in the frame, I saw how close the motors were to the very stout front crossmember and decided to go that way, but it was not clear how to get from the crossmember to something that would support the front of the motor. This is what I came up with. It's nuts, but it works. There are two now, one more will go in the middle. Took quite a few iterations to get it right - especially since when I moved the motor to take the blocking out that held it up, the motor moved and I had not set up a reference to where it was. I'm definitely taking the attitude that this is just a mock up and I'll be thrilled if it survives the rest of the build process. But, it gets the motor in the frame for now and gives me something to work against as I move forward.
It's hard to see, but there's a 2 1/2"x14" plate under the structure holding the motors and a 1/2" poly bushing in between. I had some left over 2x4 box tubing from cutting the back 18" of the frame off and I cut one of those up with my plasma cutter to create a plate that wraps the cross member to both reinforce the attachment point and make the mount removable. Next step is to drill 2 or 3 or 4 bolt holes in the cross member and plate to bolt it in place, but for now, I'm going to tack it to the crossmember to keep it in place until the axles and front driveshaft are in and I see if I have to move the motor either up or down or left to right.
The structure holding the motor is 1.5x3 box tube. The hole is sleeved.
The middle mount is more conventional.
It sits just in front of the bell housing and should be out of the way. I bought some generic LS motor mounts for the sides and a piece of box tube to go under. I like it, but I think I should have put some poly bushings in between the motor and the crossmember. And, I didn't have the motor perfectly centered when I mocked it up, so the holes in the motor structure and the crossmember don't line up (all sleeved). That's life doing custom fabricating. It's very hard to keep everything in mind. So, it's going to have to come out and get 'improved' before too long. But, for this point in the build, it's holding the motor and trans up and I can finally get the axles under the thing.
Transmission cross member is a very straightforward piece of box tube straight across about 1/2" below the bottom of the frame. I'm waiting for the transmission support thing from Advance Adapters to finish it. We'll see if it has to be modified for the front drive shaft or not.
