Original 50+ year old lower motor mount still attached. I think it's safe to say it's time change these to some new motor mounts.
The original upper and lower motor mounts removed.
When I first purchased my Isetta's, I made a mistake that probably many newbie Isetta owners have made. I purchased some parts from a dealer on ebay who goes by the name of "Italian Metals". Well, here's my little Italian Metals story. I purchased a set of motor mounts from him on ebay which I received with no problems. They looked fine, so I left a positive feedback, and put them on the shelf for future use. It was a little over a year later before I was ready to mount my rebuilt engine to the chassis. During the year that I was working on the chassis and motor, I heard many stories about the poor quality of Italian Metals parts and his rude and obnoxious behavior. He's was kind of famous for selling drive couplings that disintegrated in the first few minutes of driving. When I was finally ready to mount my rebuilt engine, I made the bad decision of deciding to go ahead and use the Italian Metals motor mounts. The above photo shows what happened to these motor mounts as soon as I began tightening the bolts. The studs instantly separated from the rubber. All I can say is that I'm glad this happened while the rolling chassis was sitting in the garage and not while I was driving a freshly restored Isetta.
I replaced the junk Italian Metals motor mounts with some polyurethane motor mounts I purchased from Greg Hahs (also known as Isetta Dude - isettadude@gmail.com) If you want a more traditional rubber motor mount that is made to the same specifications and looks as the originals, they are available in the United States from Isettas R Us.
Yes, the powder coating has been ground off the frame so the ground strap is against bare metal on the frame. Also while I had the engine lifted to change the motor mounts, I decided to nickel plate the motor mount brackets.
And since I'm getting a little carried away with nickel plating, I decided to nickel plate the intermediate shaft while I had the engine lifted. I had originally powder coated it black, but it sustained quite a few scratches when I was installing the drive couplings. I feel much better now. I can sleep at night knowing that there is not a scratched up intermediate shaft on my Isetta.
