Here's a poser for someone: I've just changed the engine subframe on my 2001 Windstar and have the engine/transmission seated on all the mounts. I notice that the tranny mount nut doesn't actually clamp on to the tranny bracket; instead it nicely fits into the hole cut for it, but it means I'm tightening the nut directly to the vibration isolator. This doesn't make sense to me: the tranny bracket isn't sandwiched between the nut and the isolator. I went to the junkyard to look at other Windstars and they're all like this from about 2000 on. The nut fits snug into a cutout in the tranny bracket, but that's it. It doesn't clamp the bracket to the isolator.

Has anyone else noticed this? If so, any thoughts on why it would be built this way?

Thanks.