I keep eating thru shock mounts, have replace them twice and last time I use OEM parts. Found the ft right shock bolt off center yester. Jacked the car up and remove tire for inspection. Found the black rubber insulator destroyed hanging in pc's. Any idea why I'm eating thru these. The OEM set have less than 15K miles on them.

 

You need to send a PM to Wayne (cjd777). He is here in North Carolina and has been custom-making by far the best front shock mounts in the world for these cars during the past couple of years. Many of us have his custom mounts installed on our cars now. You send him both of your metal bell housings and he fabricates a custom fit according to which type and shape of bell housing you have, then he sends everything back to you, ready for installation....

Any other aftermarket shock mount kit these days is pure garbage compared to his....

 

Tks Jon89, been awhile since I've been on the forum. Good to see you guys are still around.

 

Yep, I figured it had been awhile since you were around. Wayne's shock mounts have been one of the most popular topics discussed here on the XK8/XKR forum during the past 18 months or so....

 

If Wayne can't help drop me a PM.
You say last one was OEM, are you sure it was, or were you lied to. A lot of the yellow material mounts being sold now, they are not much more than a yearly subscription scheme.

 

The current set are the harder black rubberized material.



I looked at my records and this set was from Welsh.

 

Welsh haven't been lasting of late either. Do not throw out any of your mount cores (steelwork)

 

Jandreu,

Nice to see you again! Your thread reminded me. My Welsh mounts died last year. My call to Welsh ended with their promise that they were re-engineering the mount; and an invitation to call back 6+ months later so "they could make it right."

I'm going to give them that call, and of course I will let you and everyone know the outcome.

John

 

OE lasts 10-15 years the car will be gone the next time they fail. those are some welsh pos mounts

if you have time to keep your car off the road get the wayne mounts and problem solved indefinitely 🤷‍♂️

 

At the risk of repeating myself, I concur that Waynes or Baxtors remade mounts are the way to go. I'm only a few hundred Kms into them and absolutely no movement of the centre rods. My previous brand new, supposedly OEM mounts were allowing movement within a few weeks.

 

I just had mine replaced with OEMs and within 2 days one was way off centre. I was told it was a batch that was faulty. My garage has replaced the off centre one.

I have a set of bushings from Wayne but my garage told me that the old mounts were non standard and he couldn’t fit the Wayne bushings. At least I now have OEMs so next time they fail I will get them to fit Wayne’s bushings. My garage now believes me about how bad some replacement part are!

 

What about "clocking" the springs? I've read a few posts on Facebook groups suggesting it is important to align the end of the spring facing outward toward the tire. One suggested clocking the bottom of the spring and another suggested clocking the top of the spring. I have yet to find any mention of this on this forum so far.

My bushings only have 14,000 miles on them and the shock stud is completely to one side which causing a banging noise when I hit a bump in the road.
I can turn them back towards the center with a 14mm socket but they do not stay there.

 

All owners are, of course free to do what they please, and clocking won't hurt anything. That said l think it is BS. Spring clocking won't make a bad mount good.
In the original mount we have soft 70mm diameter bushes sitting in a 90mm space with nothing more than a pressed rib projection of about 1mm expected to keep it all centred. If lucky it does but usually it doesn't.

 

I, too, noticed the right front bolt was off on my shock. I'd been over a rough stretch of road and felt some "juddering". I'd just replaced the front shocks and mounts a couple months ago. I jacked it up and everything seemed tight with no visible damage, When I removed the top bolts I noticed that the diameter of the bolts was smaller than the holes in the frame (see pic).
The holes are not elongated but I'm sure if I don't take action soon, they will be. Judging from the paint underneath the nuts there has been little, if any, movement so still not convinced that's what caused the juddering. I don't have a clue why this didn't set off alarm bells in my head when I installed them, must have been half asleep I guess.

My question is...
are there any bushings or tapered nuts (like lug nuts) that could fix this issue or am I doomed to buy a new set of shock mounts, rent a spring compressor, etc. etc. I'm open fo suggestions. Thanks.

 

Google tapered washers, plenty to choose from.

 

The stud to hole clearance is normal and has nothing to do with your problem.
The problem is mostly down to that yellow crap in your mount. I have no idea why this one particular brand of front mount still has any market share.
Fitting these is akin to an annual subscription.

 

This nut is a flanged nut and in my building of the systems they have 2 different nut sizes.
8 x 1.25 and 5/16 x 18, just depended on who made the upper bell shaped system.
The flanged nuts have a washer built into it with a segregated bottom to keep things in place.
Any good hardware store should have the size you need. take one of the ones you have that fit. I have even added a fender washer of the right size when the holes looked a little too large.

Had to edit, as I looked in my box for the top studs and saw I was thinking of something else, with luck you'll get to be 83 and say, Damn he was right, CRS.

 

copcardrvr,

See post #2 in this thread. When you decide to bite the bullet and replace the inferior front shock mounts you have right now, contact Wayne. He (here in North Carolina) and Baxtor (in Australia) have designed and created by far the best front shock mounts on the planet for these cars....