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After 5 years of casually glancing at generic L134 motor mounts from various supplier ads all over the place, now that my motor is at the machine shop I've been looking more closely. (Take Nothing For Granted Department - thanks Wes!) I'm installing the lower radiator support rods on the power pack this time.

Most of the mounts I see advertised are like what I have, open across the bottom. A few I've noticed lately have a flat plate tack welded across the bottom of the mount. Some forums and ads say this bottom plate is unique to the M38 to capture and reinforce the lower radiator support rods. Some folks in other forums say the extra 1/16-inch height from the plate is for correct drive train alignment and they're even used on CJ's. Hard to get to the ground truth. Nothing definite I can find in the TM's. Nothing in this forum on it that I could find.

http://willysjeepforum.kaiserwillys.com ... ount-Issue

It looks to me like these bottom plate style mounts could be universally used with an L134 anywhere, but capturing M38 radiator support rods seems the more likely reason to me, but what the heck do I know?

I'm thinking I should get a pair of them and get one step closer to M38 perfection. I haven't seen any NOS, but there seems to be some new reproduction around, reasonable prices.

Your experience and advice appreciated as always!

The give-away is in the parts manual. The WWII and early CJ used two different mount cushions. The later CJ2A and CJ3A used another part number and the M38 used it's own part number. The M38A1 used even another part number. Do all these part number cushions interchange? Good question. Most can be used on other applications but in some cases like the M38's you loose the ability to do the traditional "Entire Power Plant Swap" because if you use a cushion without the steel retaining plate the radiator supports will fall as you lift the entire assembly.

The civilian service manuals for the universal jeeps show the cushion without a backup plate. The M38 shows the cushion with the plate. The M38A1 service manual shows an even more interesting backup plate.

No, a 1/32" plate is not there to change the drive angles!

10-4 Wes, and thanks! Added to my buy list.

When I rebuilt my M38 I made sure to put in the correct front engine mounts with pockets to for the radiator support rods - makes a big difference in ease of extracting the engine if needed. Got mine from Midwest Military.

x2 for Midwest Military!

Same here; I needed one support rod and got it from MM.
But just FI, the engine supports are interchangeable in actual practice if all they had to do was hold the engine That plate is there just to hold the radiator rods and as stated, are unique to the M38.