I may be nothing more than a self proclaimed driveway mechanic, and don't normally do write ups, but this stupid job made me so angry I thought maybe I'd try to help out some other idiots.

Tools you will need:

14mm ratchet wrench is a must. At the very least get a set of husky, cheap amazon garbage won't work, you need something that can handle a lot of torque.

14mm stubby wrench that you can grind down

Real skinny arms


Tools you might need:

14mm hex bit socket to extend the ratchet wrench. You can try to get away without it by just using a 1/2" drive extension, but 1/2" is 13mm so the amount of play it has probably won't work with how little room you have in the engine bay.

Wobble extensions

Impact universal

14mm stubby wrench extractor

Deep socket bolt extractors (I have been using Irwin for years with nothing but praise for them)



First of all, remove the bottom nuts of the motor mounts to be able to jack up the engine. To be safe, put a piece of wood under the front side of the oil pan; the oil pickup is on the rear side. You shouldn't harm the oil pan unless you're really negligent, but if you do somehow dent it, it'll be on the side away from the oil pickup.

On the driver side, there is a stupid bracket that will be in the way of your wrench, just bash or bend this out of the way.
Now you can attempt to remove the top nut of the engine mount with a stubby wrench with the 14mm hex key like in this guy's video:


However, if it goes as stupid for you as it did for me, it just rounds the nut. This is fine, it just means you'll have a lot more work to do. You can try getting an extractor stubby like he does in the video, but I didn't have time to wait for one, and didn't feel like spending $25 on a wrench.

To remedy this, I just took off the headers. If you're lucky, only the bolts to the stupid heat shield will be completely rusted on. I ended up having to use my harbor freight air hammer to cut off the bottom rear bolt. once the heat shield is off, the rest is "easy". All the header nuts came off easy with a breaker bar, but that might just be because my stupid valve covers have been leaking for awhile and the oil acted as a lubricant. Once the headers are loose, you'll have to unbolt the cat from the y-pipe, and unplug the o2 sensor, no need to remove it from the header. Now just throw the header on the ground.

You now have enough room to get a socket on top of the motor mount. If you rounded the nut enough, this is where the extractor sockets come in. I first attempted to remove it with breaker bar, but with how awkward it was I couldn't get a good angle to break it, you may have better luck, or just be able to use a ratchet. I was able to get my impact on it with a wobble extension and a impact universal. If you don't have these already, you should get them anyway, they are awesome to have for any project.




The stupid mount can come out and new one back in, slap everything back together, and on to the stupid passenger side.

I noticed this way too late, but the clearance between the header and the motor mount thread is thinner on the passenger side than the driver side, so the only way to get your stubby on the nut is to grind it down thin enough to fit.

Try to use the first method of turning your stubby into a crowfoot to loosen the nut. If you round it off again, no big deal, except its a very big stupid deal.

Now you'll have to remove the mount bracket by taking out the 4 bolts holding it on, which sounds simple, if only every single thing wasn't in the way. The worst one is probably the top rear. Use those skinny arms of yours to get the ratchet wrench on the bolt. Then I used the 14mm hex key with socket extensions as a breaker bar.


Once it's broken loose, you'll probably have to back it out all the way with the ratchet because its pretty much unreachable by hand.

The bottom rear bolt I used the same method, but at least it's a little easier to get to.

The top front is almost just as bad as the top rear since its waaaay up in there, and the stupid oil cooler line is in the way. The oil filter definitely has to come off, along with the top oil cooler line. So just take that off, make a mess, and shove it out of the way. Wrap your ratchet wrench in some electrical tape to help keep it from bending, otherwise it's going to be an absolute pain getting the wrench on the bolt and keeping it from coming off. Use the hex key breaker bar again.

Bottom front bolt should be easy.

If you're lucky and your stupid mount is severed in two, it'll come out easy. It'll still be a pain putting it back in though. Don't attach the mount to the bracket outside the car. You'll want to put them in one at a time, but don't bolt anything in, just put them in the space. Put the mount on the bracket, screw the nut on just enough so it doesn't fall off, you'll want the movement and clearance to be able to put the stupid bracket bolts back in. Get them all tightened down as best you can. I didn't even put the stupid top rear bolt back in, because it's impossible. Once that's done you can tighten down the mount nut with the stubby.

Drop the stupid engine, tighten the stupid bottom mount nuts, throw the stupid oil filter back on, reattach the stupid oil cooler line, and fill up your stupid fluids. You are now done and realize that it would've been easier to take the whole stupid engine out.

Good luck

 

Two tools that help immensely for that project.

-torque adapter with a 6 point head, then you don't need to use stubbys.

-engine bar, there are two big bolts in the front of the timing chain cover that are the motor mount location for when the engine is mounted transversely in the Maxima/Altima, you can unbolt one and put a picking eye on that spot then hook the engine bar to it to support the engine from the TOP so you have more room to work below without needing a jack.

 

The jack underneath actually was somehow the only thing that wasn't stupid, i never noticed it in my way, and it's a comically large 4 ton jack. The engine bar I definitely would've gotten mad at being in my way

Torque adapters would probably be nice, but I still see the same problem of possibly rounding the nuts

 

Rounded nuts are almost always from either using 12 point or by using a substandard 6 point. A good 6 point will always break the head off the bolt before it rounds. I've gotten away from traditional hex pattern 6 points and almost everything I use now is flank drive 6 point.

Usually you can just look at a picture of the item and see that it's flank drive if it's not specifically listed as such.

Unfortunately... good luck finding torque adapters in 6 point, they do make 12 point in flank drive though.

However, Matco makes a specialty wrench head called "hex grip" that's pretty amazing for grabbing bolt heads, it's specifically designed for grabbing ones that are already rounded by work even better if it's still 100%. All of Matco extractor tools are top notch stuff.