Morning Wayne,
That's surely the way to go as you have a completely flat face to seat on the underside of the bodywork.

The original rivets protrude underneath, as do the flat tops of the mounting bolts, but that's OK as they press into the foam doughnut.

I'm looking forward to hear successful testing and a great outcome on this project

 

Same here, Michael. I believe Wayne's shock mounts will become the de-facto choice as more and more owners install them and then report back here on their performance and durability. If / when the Welsh pair fails on my wife's 2006 XK8, Wayne's product will be installed in their place....

 

I have mounted Eurospare shock mounts and to be honest the rivet issue was not a problem for me. So far so good. The entire point of the assemply is to absorb road impact. When hitting a bump first the tire sidewall absorbs the impact, the coil spring absorbs the impact and the shock mount itself absorbs the impact. The interface between the shock assemply and the shock tower is pretty well insulated from the impact. The shock absorbers job it to return the suspension to its normal position after the engery of the impact is absorbed by the the other components. IMO

 

So after deciding that the OEM mounts were probably the best solution I found that they are not a 'stock' item at the local Jag dealer or the few on-line Jag dealers I've worked with. #$%^! So, I ordered a set of the Welsh mounts since the EuroSpares had the raised rivet heads and the URO mounts probably aren't worth buying. IMHO. The Welsh mounts arrived yesterday (3 days ahead of schedule!). But lo and behold the Welsh mounts have raised rivet heads as well. Not as pronounced as the EuroSpares but still unsettling. It looks like the upper ring has a counterbored hole for the rivet heads but the size of the compressed rivet on the underside looks a lot fatter than the original mounts. Not sure if the rivet holes are the same size as the OEM or have been drilled out to a larger diameter. Double $^%*! I really don't want to wait weeks for the OEMs but I'm not sure if I should install the Welsh mounts 'as is'.

As I was thinking things over it occurred to me that I could use the original shock mount plates on the new mounts if I can find the right sized rivets at the home center (or if I happen to have the right size in my supply of various rivets). Wish I had thought of that with the EuroSpare mounts. It would have saved me some time and a few bucks (for shipping back & forth).

Anyway, not sure if I'll re-work the new mounts or install them as they are. I'll know better after I start to work on things and examine the top size of the rivets on the new mounts. The local AutoZone has the monster strut compressor available so I'm going to see if I can snag it today and get started rebuilding the struts. Hopefully the shocks will be A-Ok and I won't have to buy a pair of shocks too.

 

Let us know you’re it goes with the spring compressor.

 

The rivet heads never seemed like such a big concern to me. Sure, they're clearly not ideal, but that fraction of an inch sure seems like it would be within tolerances, especially given the amount of effort you're going through to try to avoid them.

At that point, Why not work around them by adding a thin layer of some material to the top of the mount to spread the load? It sounds easier than drilling out and replacing rivets or even shipping back and forth to different manufacturers. Heck, with some of our front ends sagging, something like a 1/8" thick piece of high density plastic cut into the appropriate circle would spread the load away from the heads and give a little lift all while providing a tiny bit of extra cushion.

But me, I would (and did) just decide not to worry about it.

Just to throw it in there, I was always much more worried about the pancaking of the new mounts once they were under compression. There, now you can't unhear that In my experience, once the car's weight was down on the new mounts, they were squeezed way more thin than I'd expected.

 

I just don't like the idea of buying something that's a 'replacement', then having to make it fit properly just because the manufacturer couldn't be a*sed to do it right. "We've always done it that way" is just closed-mind thinking.

It may not make much difference in the great scheme of things, although there are no commercially-available alternatives to date that would tempt me away from OEM. If my recent replacement mounts give another 20+ years service I'll have no complaints.

Just my

 

+1, +2, +3 . . . +n, and a big 'AMEN' to that . . .

If it's a perfect match, visually and, more importantly, functionally, then that's one matter . . . but why turn one's back on all the pre-production testing that Jaguar has undertaken. I well recall the fleet of pre-production XJ6s that came out to Australia in the day, not to parade elegantly up our main streets, but taken to the outback where each was tortured almost to destruction. I recall one loaned to an auto magazine writer who began his test drive report thus . . . "I have been given the rare opportunity to test drive Jaguar's soon to be released new saloon, and this one already has a quarter of a million on the odometer!"

I, for one, don't have the time or resources to emulate that king of testing.
Like Michael, this is also just my 2c.

Cheers,

 

Don't get me wrong, I'd completely agree with demanding and even yelling that the replacement parts must be as good as what Jaguar developed.

But after the demands are registered and there's a non-theoretical part in your hands, one that might be perfectly serviceable, well then there's a really practical decision to make.

I think TropicCat sounds really frustrated with the prospect of spending even more time and resources chasing this part down, so to him personally I'd say he might consider whether it's really worth it to hold this job open hoping to get the perfect part. If he thinks it is, then great! But I think I can sense a level of frustration that maybe doesn't justify whatever marginal benefit would come from the minorly different part.

Every person will have their own opinion about how much in time and resources to pay for getting things just right.
We each have the point where we take a deep breath and repeat to ourselves, The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Like I said, I have zero disagreement that the flat rivet design seems better for a few reasons. But better enough to justify the added stress? That's the question we each should pause and answer.