Engine Support Bracket

Recently, I took the opportinity to fabricate a tool for my garage, with the help of a neighbour who is an accomplished welder. I'll document it further here, but at the moment, I just have a few photos of the completed tool. This is a functional equivalent to the MS53B engine support bracket shown in the XJ-S Workshop Service Manuals (which shows two variations on the theme).

Please excuse the car - this is my 1985 project car ("Badkitty"), and it's in need of a bit of restoration work. This support is shown fitted in place just as you would use it to support the engine from above.

Note that everything about this bracket was fabricated from raw steel components - the hook is a piece of allthread, the hand-adjustable locking bolts are 3/8" bolts with a small piece of metal tig welded to the top. The yellow paint is a rubberized/textured paint, affording an improved grip/less likelyhood of scratching (plus, if you drop something, you should spot it pretty easily). The bottoms of the stand ends are covered with a strip of old garden hose (conventiently a dark green) which was split up the side and filled with silicone. Note that the wireties you see on the hose are simply holding the pieces of hose together while the silicone inside cures, and will be removed when the silicone has dried further.

After my post about having constructed this, a few people inquired about availability. I've talked it over with my neighbour (who has the welding gear at his place), and US$250 for basically what you see pictured here was the number we arrived at, which covers materials and the time investment into doing the job right. Shipping is in addition to that - for US West Coast to East Coast UPS Ground shipping, it works out to US$40 (for the pair of packages), and more local shipping is circa US$21. If you're interested, contact me at the address below, and we can make arrangements.

Additional anchor brackets or a longer hook can also be fabricated, at an additional cost of US$40 (for bracket with hook, as pictured). Note that you can pass the setscrew bolt through a chain link, then pass that down and under/through something, and hook it up on the hook assembly, so this can be used to anchor exhaust or other components while dis/assembling as well.