All right, you must be talking about the 'tie strap' that joins the bottom
of the two engine cradle bars.  A simple strap of metal about 2 inches wide
and 2 and half feet long - easy to fab for any welder.
  Since the ends of an 82's DV's engine cradle bars are mounted in
rubber......without this tie 
Strap the bars will move, the engine will move up and down almost two inches
when you rev it,
And as we now know, this can put huge stress on the cast aluminum engine
mounting bracket bolts.
   And..........i can't tell you the awful hack work I see in so many engine
conversion jobs. How people leave important parts off like this is beyond
me. How they can't see it's an important part, I just can't imagine.
Somebody somewhere decided to leave that part off.
   There's a better way to build the whole thing actually, welding on the
cradle bars and eliminating the rubber bushings in the end, but that's whole
other story/project.
  Least you know what's going on and you had the fun of keeping it moving
out in the field.  Good goin' on that. Heck, just leave it for another trip
or two until you REALLY have to deal with it ! ;-) 
Scott
www.turbovans.com 
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Michael Sullivan
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2007 1:09 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Loose motor

Way to go MacGyver!!!! :-)

   Yesterday I was running through the desert in my 84 Gas/diesel inline
 four conversion and enjoying
the dips, then I came to a stop sign and noticed my exhaust note had
 changed..The gear shifting was
not right, either, so I pulled over and crawled under to find the
 passenger side of the motor was
hanging low...Hmmm!..So I tossed out all the stuff in the back hatch
 area, after inspecting all the
motor mounts underneath..
  Now, this motor has always seemed a bit "loose" in the van, ever
 since I bought the already-done
conversion about 30k thousand miles ago.  I've repeatedly checked the
 motor mounts, bought new ones
and stached em after I found the current ones to be just fine...I
 simply assumed that it was normal
for the inline four to be able to rock around back there...Not great,
 but perhaps just a poor design.
  I found the right side rear cast aluminum motor mount had sheered the
 mounting bolts right at the
block..leaving the right side of the motor hanging.....As I began
 trying to see how to fix that, I
happened to find, in the Bently, a short 2 page write up on the diesel
 motor install/remove...and
Whoa!..right there in the book it shows a thing they call the Engine
 Support mount...Mine NEVER had
one...And I, for one, have never encountered any installation that uses
 the oil pan as a stressed
mounting member..a weight-bearing part of the engine mounting set
 up...It is kind of a transverse
strap, from rail to rail that the flat bottom of the diesel motor oil
 pan just sits on...takes up
some of the weight, I guess and keeps it from rocking?  We shall see...
  So anyhow, I limped back to my campsite and using some construction
 wood I had around and some
extra motorcycle tiedown straps...I have now a fine looking '2x4 engine
 support mount'...Gotta love
the vans...
  If I were home with all my tools, I could have done a permanent fix
 with ease...but since I am
camping, I will have to depend on the local mechanics to try to
 "easy-out" the broken mount bolts
out of the block, and to fabricate a strap to sit the pan onto rather
 than my 'special' 2x4 racing
mount...

  Happy new year everyone,
  Don Hanson

Thanks, Michael Sullivan