Stopping the nose of the diff lifting.

[BayAreaZT]

Mine is straped with a 3/8" steel cable like in the JTR manual as a temporary fix. Eventually I'll change it out to a more permanant solution like the Ron Tyler design but the strap is holding up pretty good.

[buZy]

Trapped nose from the top and bottom. Lowered pinion, iso rubber mounted, 1.2 DS angle, No vibs.

 

[Twoeightnine]

Now thats not comming undone!

[JMortensen]

Forget the strap. It's a dumb way to control the diff in my opinion, and trying to make a new one from a different material is going to be more of a headache than modifying the diff mount.

 

The angle iron is good, but if you need stronger, make a U shaped clamp that goes all the way underneath the crossmember and attaches on the front and back of the diff mount. Or, do like Clifton did and weld a tab that hangs down on both sides of the crossmember and then drill holes and run a bolt through them. Basically the same idea. Or, follow Ron Tyler's lead and do a mount that sits on top of the diff so that when the diff tries to lift it compresses the mount instead of trying to tear it apart. All are much better and easier to do than modifying the strap...

[ZR8ED]

I made a strap from 3/8 flat bar. I bent it, and welded a small piece of pipe on the ends. It bolts to the stock mounting for the original diff snubber strap from the factory. There is a piece of rubber between the strap and the diff. Under normal driving is is pretty quiet, but when I go more that 1/2 throttle, the diff moves (1mm) or less. It then gets more noisy.. not as bad as the solid mount though.

 

Unbolt the two factory bolts, and it comes right off.

 

BTW the solid mounts get VERY noisy when you have a roll cage/bar. So bad, that I had to drive with earplugs in so I would not commit suicide after more than 5 min in the car.

 

Scott.

[Twoeightnine]

Thanks Jon.

So I take it that the strap was a factory deal. Shame they didn't take it a step futher to secure the diff more positively.

I think I have the Ron Tyler blue print on the hard drive here somewhere.

Getting ready to pull the diff for the Power Brute conversion so I guess Im at the point of needing to decide.

 

Thanks again,

[pparaska]

Twoeightnine:

I have the blueprints for the Ron Tyler mount here:

http://alteredz.com/drivelinemods.htm#Differential_Front_Mount

 

I HIGHLY recommend it:

- It isn't solid, so you get vibration isolation ALL THE TIME.

- It allows you to tune the u-joint angles to optimum

- It allows you to modifiy/partially remove the front diff crossmember for mor exhaust clearance.

- It bolts right in

[Twoeightnine]

Thanks Pete.

I was just scanning the files on my computer. Couldn' find it.

Was going to reach for sacred Hybrid Z search button when I saw your post. Thanks again for the assist.

My thought is to see if I can mod the top of his mount to be adjustable.

As to allow for diff nose angle changes. Has this been done?

(Edit) Christ on a crutch!! I re read your post. All the way through this time. And saw that you had yet again already answered my question. Trying to do three things at once here! Work keeps getting in the way of Z excellence!

 

Thanks again

[buZy]

Twoeightnine I used this great design from petes pages too. All the parts sizes are with in tolerance. The only thing different I did was tack weld the parts in the car to insure a custom fit. The design is very adjustable using spacers between the upper diff and isolator. Setting your driveline angles first is the key.

[Team Zleep]

another good thing to do (and is cheap) is what i did.

 

i bought some sway bar bushings (from autozone...the longest i could find), they were like $14.00.

 

then i removed the old mount entirely, and drilled the 2 holes corresponding to the holes in the diffy, and then slapped a bushing between the diff and the x-member. i used the washers that came with it to make sure it was the same height as the stock mount.

 

and bam, poly diff mount.

 

ill try to get some pics up, its raining hard at the moment.

[Twoeightnine]

Twoeightnine I used this great design from petes pages too. All the parts sizes are with in tolerance. The only thing different I did was tack weld the parts in the car to insure a custom fit. The design is very adjustable using spacers between the upper diff and isolator. Setting your driveline angles first is the key.

Buzy. thanks for the return. Oddly, while driving this morning I was wondering about the tolerances. Particularly at the base of the bracket assembly. Namely it's width. Certainly would not want to be too wide but, tacking it in place is a great way to solve that one. And one question. The spacers that you speak of. Would they not need to be between the iso and the bracket assembly? And if you mean, "between the upper dif and iso", what type of material and how do you secure them?

 

another good thing to do (and is cheap) is what i did.

 

i bought some sway bar bushings (from autozone...the longest i could find), they were like $14.00.

 

then i removed the old mount entirely, and drilled the 2 holes corresponding to the holes in the diffy, and then slapped a bushing between the diff and the x-member. i used the washers that came with it to make sure it was the same height as the stock mount.

 

and bam, poly diff mount.

 

ill try to get some pics up, its raining hard at the moment.

 

Zleep...yes pics please. Poly diff sounds good!

[buZy]

And one question. The spacers that you speak of. Would they not need to be between the iso and the bracket assembly? And if you mean, "between the upper dif and iso", what type of material and how do you secure them?

 

Twoeightnine. In post #22 on this thread I posted a picture showing all this you ask. Having the plates bolted in the car before tacking is critical. The print is a sound design but there is no way these numbers will fit every car perfectly. You see the upper isolator attached to the Ron Tyler mount. Then the gold colored metal spacers between that and the diff. The whole thing uses through bolts around 5 inches long typical. Here is the isolator I used purchased from summit.

 

http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=ENS%2D3%2D1108G&N=700+115&autoview=sku

[Twoeightnine]

Ah. Savy that. Thank you sir.

[QWKDTSN]

Zleep, that sounds ingenious! Pics please! I think I have a good idea of what you're describing but I'd love to see actual photos. I love how creative every one of us gets when it comes to tackling the problem of the stock rear diff mount. It really shows how poor the original design was, and how incredibly clever many of us are. There are probably two dozen completely different designs that fix the problem, some cheap, some elaborate, some elegant and some not. I'm really looking forward to digging back into mine and hopefully solving it once and for all. I like Zleep's idea; otherwise I will take the blueprints for the Ron Tyler overhead mount to the local welding shop and have them fab one up for me to try, probably won't cost more than $30-45...

[Team Zleep]

alrighty! ill get to it, and get them up asap!

 

probably within the next few hours!

[Team Zleep]

okay... minutes later...hehe.

 

 

i used to have bushings at the bottom of the xmember... but i was having vibration problems, and i tried putting the weight back on, and it helped out a lot... so they arent there.

 

and the washer that's leaning, i was gonna bend it to go with the xmember, or just hammer the xmember... but it hasn't effected anything. it worked out great, and was a really cheap soultion to my broken diff mount. no more "clunk" for me!!!

 

 

lol... notice the little red on the tranny.... just guess...hehe.

[Pyro]

Sway bar link kit. Bushings top and bottom.

 

[Zmanco]

 

i used to have bushings at the bottom of the xmember... but i was having vibration problems, and i tried putting the weight back on, and it helped out a lot... so they arent there.

If I am seeing this picture correctly, it looks like you bolted the weights directly to the cross memeber and did not use the bolts that attach the diff, is that correct?

 

Interesting, using a weight as a damper I guess reduces the vibration. I give you very high marks for creativity! What made you think to add the weight?

 

Also, how is the noise compared to the original diff mount? I ask because I could imagine that the bolts might come in contact with the side of the holes in the diff and transmit some vibration and hence noise.

 

But I like this approach a lot - very simple and elegant, and easy to adjust the drive shaft angle too.

[Scottie-GNZ]

Simple solution I came up with several years ago. Simple and inexpensive steel strap that prevents the diff nose from lifting but retains the original rubber insulator and all its benefits. Not elegant, but effective enough to work for the massive turbo Buick torque before I switched to the C4 IRS.

[Team Zleep]

believe it or not, that weight was there...from the factory.

 

it was from what i hear a "quick fix" for a vibration problem in some cars... not all of them. either they were lazy, or didn't have the time to properly fix it, and just slapped it on all of them.