Ron Tyler diff mount installed

[Dan Juday]

Even with three wraps of the ghetto strap and two clamps the rear u-joint was still wacking the parking brake parts on hard launchs. Big tires+big torque=streched cable.

So I had a local welder/fabricator make me a Ron Tyler designed diff mount like Pete P's. Just printed the drawing right off Rons site and handed it to him. $6 for a tranny mount at Napa and I had all I needed.

For those of you thinking of going this route as well a couple of insites.

I would shorten the diamension across the top 1/8". It was a very tight fit. Could be because my car still has the original undercoating. It took a floor jack and a few heavy wacks with a hammer to get the bolt holes to line up. Also, perhaps I bought the wrong tranny mount but I had to slot the already somewhat slotted holes inward about 1/16" each. Not a big deal but I remember Pete saying that his lined up fine. I used four flat washers, two on the mount stud and one under each of the long diff nose bolts to lower the nose a bit more for a near optimum u-joint alignment. This required grinding notches in the crossmember so the bolt heads wouldn't hit it. I know others have said that you can just cut out the middle section of the crossmember all together but I like the fact that it ties the bottom of the tunnel together there. That must be benificial to the overall strength of the unibody.

Took it out for a test drive with my son and I am very happy with the results. Got on it very hard in the first three gears and not a click or a vibration.

Scared the pants off the boy!

Thanks again Ron and Pete.

[fastzcars]

I was wondering about that mount 3 months ago. I finally go around to making one myself, but never mounted it. I install it this week and report my results as well. Thanks for the update Dan.

[RB26powered74zcar]

Hi Dan, this post reminded me of a old post we had going on this same subject >> GM Diff Mount MOD

 

I had to reload the pics I had in that post due to the server change.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Clifton]

Looks nice. Is there anything in the mount that will hold it together if or when the poly seperates? I welded 2 tabs to the stock upper peice and ran a bolt through them that runs underneath the bottom of the mount. It only allows 1/8" of up travel on the front of the diff before the bolt hits the botom. You can hear the noise being transmitted through the bolt/crossmember. It sounds like a soilid mount under accel only though. Normal driving is like a stock mount.

 

 

[Dan Juday]

Looks nice. Is there anything in the mount that will hold it together if or when the poly seperates?

 

I don't know. I think Pete P. investigated this a while back but I'm not certain and I obviously don't remember the results if he did. Either way the crossmember will catch it if it breaks. And the racket should let you you know something is a miss.

 

The "bolt under the crossmember" solution is clearly effective. All you need is a welder, a drill, a bolt, and couple of scraps of steel. No disassembly required either. Very clever Clif.

[CruxGNZ]

Ron's site seems to be under construction. Would anybody be able to send me the dimmensions via e-mail? I would like to pick up the metal today, but I'm not sure how much I need and what gauge to buy. I saved all the pictures except for the drawing(s) with the dimmensions on it .

 

!M!

[fastzcars]

Hi Mat73. I just downloaded the daigram on my yahoo page just Click on the WWW on this post. Click the z car album. The pic is at the bottom of the page. Hope that helps. I just can't figure out how to hyperlink. Sorry.

[fastzcars]

Hi Mat73. I just downloaded the daigram on my yahoo page just Click on the WWW on this post. Click the z car album. The pic is at the bottom of the page. Hope that helps. I just can't figure out how to hyperlink. Sorry.

[CruxGNZ]

Awsome! Thank you very much

 

!M!

[pparaska]

Thanks, fastzcars! I took the liberty of downloading your drawing and putting it on my site, linked from my "driveline mods" page: http://alteredz.com/drivelinemods.htm#Differential_Front_Mount

 

Here's the link to the B&W .gif file of it:

http://alteredz.com/image/drivelinemods/ron_tyler_diff_mount_diag.gif

 

BTW, the GM mount is not an interlocking mount, but the Energy suspensions one is. No worries about it coming apart. Like Dan said, the crossmember would catch it anyway.

[blueovalz]

Well Dan, it's good to see you get your fingernails dirty again. Been a while, huh.

[DaleMX]

I think Cliftons solution is the best. Simple and effective. You could even put a bit of rubber under the bolt to kill some of the noise.

[Jolane]

Dale,

That is the method I took when making my differential mount ( which I will end up redoing because I want it to look better). I started with a suspension bushing (poly, of course) and cut DOM tubing to fit. Then I fabriacted a mount that put the poly bushing behind the stock crossmember, about the same height. The bushing goes across the car from side to side. This allows me to drop the nose of the diff until it is very close to the cross member. It coulds even be lower if the cross member was modified.

The advantage is that now above the diff is completely clear other than parking brake stuff. It is also cheap, and should be (I haven't tested it yet, won't be on the road for ~1 yr probably) very effective. It also does not change ground clearance as all of this is above the bottom of the frame rails by a good bit.

Now, with this said, I am going to look into making mounts like the R230 uses. Basically make a bracket to hold two bushings on either side of the diff, and run bolts up from the bottom to attack to ears on the crossmember. There may not be quite enough room though...need to look at this more someday.

 

Anyways, I also like Cliftons approach. I really like suspension bushings too, very useful.

Joshua

[Dan Juday]

Well Dan, it's good to see you get your fingernails dirty again. Been a while, huh.

 

Oh ya! Actually the diff mount was awhile ago. I just finished rebuilding my front suspension. Talk about gettin' dirty.

[cygnusx1]

Thanks for the prints. FYI..it would be easier to make the side legs one peice instead of welding the lower part on with the two clearance holes in it. Just make each side leg one piece and drill out the holes. Alternatively, the whole thing could be bent out of a strip of 1/4" mild steel. The only welding would be the upper rib to stiffen the upper horizontal.

 

Sorry 'bout my nit picking but I don't have a welder handy so that's how I look at things.

[pparaska]

cygnusx1 - I agree, a bent piece that is a bit wider with 2 holes in each end is all that's needed. But the nice thing about making it out of 2 separate legs and the top pieces is that you have good control over the dimensions of the surface the mount goes against and the holes in the end. But you could do the bending first to get the top level and the legs at the right angles and then drill the bottom holes at the correct place to have the mount in the right place relative to the holes in the end.

[m1ghtymaxXx]

Apologies for the near decade bump, but I just received the Energy Suspension bushing, and plan to head out to friends garage out of town, meaning I need to come prepared. I've had the Technoversions RT style diff mount installed with a bump stop (had about 1-2mm of clearance) but it never fully cured the knock, and the past week or so it's gotten significantly worse. I assume the stock diff mount is still the culprit, I went over all the suspect bolts and tried jacking up the nose of the diff and it moved a fair bit, though I wasn't able replicate the noise on jackstands. 

 

Anyways, I keep reading that the Energy Suspension bushing requires modification, though I can't find what modification that is. RB26's post (#3) in this thread has a broken link titled "GM Diff Mount Mod", but unfortunately it's...well, broken. I presumed there's some slotting or something required, but the pics in this thread don't show anything obvious. Can someone point out what I need to do so I can pack the appropriate tools? Also what do I need for hardware? I assume the stock bolts are used to fasten the mount to the diff?

[NewZed]

Here's an old thread that describes what some people do.  The ES mount is flat and will rock on the nose of the diff.  They remove urethane from the center-bottom mount to let it seat on the mounting holes.  Another way is to stack washers under the mount at the holes but the original RT design already lowers the nose of the diff, since he designed it for a small block chevy transplant application.  In an ideal world there would be another RT-style mount that holds the diff in the L6 orientation.

 

Forgot to say that the ES mount holes need to be elongated also since they don't line up with the diff holes.  Also described in bjhines's thread.  A good round file will do the job.  Actually a good size round file will probably do both jobs.

 

http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/50209-ron-tyler-style-front-diff-mount/

Edited July 4, 2014 by NewZed

[m1ghtymaxXx]

Here's an old thread that describes what some people do.  The ES mount is flat and will rock on the nose of the diff.  They remove urethane from the center-bottom mount to let it seat on the mounting holes.  Another way is to stack washers under the mount at the holes but the original RT design already lowers the nose of the diff, since he designed it for a small block chevy transplant application.  In an ideal world there would be another RT-style mount that holds the diff in the L6 orientation.

 

Forgot to say that the ES mount holes need to be elongated also since they don't line up with the diff holes.  Also described in bjhines's thread.  A good round file will do the job.  Actually a good size round file will probably do both jobs.

 

http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/50209-ron-tyler-style-front-diff-mount/

 

Thanks! Found a few posts claiming the RT mount changed the pinion angle enough to cause a driveline vibration on stock motored Z...like mine. Suppose I'll give it a shot and see what happens. Not sure why the bump stop is allowing for much movement, unless there's another culprit causing the knock. If the chevy mount doesn't work out, I suppose I'll try and tighten up the bump stop with some washers. 

[NewZed]

I had the clunk for a while and decided that the actual noise is not from the nose going up but when it drops back down.  Lift-drop-clunk.  A new stock diff mount along with the snubber might do the trick.  The ES mount is convenient though, since it will let the diff hang by itself and is nice if you do any work on the suspension.  You can remove the cross member without worrying about the diff.

 

U-joints can cause noise with just a little wear.  They're hard to diagnose without prying them around with a lever and examining with a good eye under good light.

Edited July 4, 2014 by NewZed