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90K views 330 replies 98 participants last post by  bpitas 
#1 ·
Well I got bored today so I decided to try and rid myself of this damn wheelhop. It seems pretty obvious what the problem is with these bushings, they are just incredibly soft. In an effort to firm them up I decided to just shim them. The job was super easy to do, just put the ass end on jackstands, support the diff with a jack, pull the front 2 cradle bolts and let the diff down slowly until you have enough room to work.



I trimmed the rubber bushings down to the point they had a nice flat surface which lets the first 1.25" washer fit over the metal part of the bushing.



I ended up using 2 washers on top and bottom which compresses that bushing close to 1/2". Using the jack to lift the cradle back up and center the upper washers made it a piece of cake.



Unfortunatly I could only find 1.25" washers so I was only able to do the front cradle bushings so far. I'll be picking up some 1.75" washers to do the same to the rear two bushings as well.


Before dropping the clutch at 5k on dry pavement resulted in wheelhop that would give ya a nose bleed. Now it only has a slight little wiggle that you can barely feel and the tires lay a perfectly smooth patch of rubber down. I've still got a little hop when I grab second hard but its only half of what it was before. Hopefully after doing the same to the rear bushings it will be even better. All in all I have to say I’m really pleased with the results. All in all i'm very happy with it. It was a dramatic improvement on the wheelhop and absolutely no increase in interior noise since there is no metal-on-metal contact. :spin:
 
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#4 ·
Damn! I love seeing folks being innovative. Great job, Hog.

Let us know how the final set up works.
 
#11 ·
Basically what I did is forced the existing bushing to compress more to firm it up. The bushing, itself, has a metal shank inside that the bolt goes through so when you tighten the bushing down you are just tightening that shank down against the car. The shank just has soft rubber attached to it that is attached to that 3" outer shank pressed into the cradle.

The problem is that the only thing holding that cradle to the car is all that soft rubber. Since that inner shank is what bottoms out when you tighten the bushings down, the washers force that rubber to compress down inside the outer shank and firm up.

When I said no metal-on-metal I meant that there is no metal of the cradle in contact with the body of the car. If you look at the pic that has the 4 washers in it you can see that there is still a 1/8" gap between the cradle and those washers that is all rubber.

The whole process only took about an hour, and half that time was spent drinking corona. :alchi:
 
#9 ·
I'll be doing the rear two bushings before heading out to our little Friday Night Street Racing event here (at the track). I'll bring my video cam and make a couple videos this time around. It felt soo good to lay 100' of rubber down the street without my ass end bouncing all over the place. :)
 
#10 ·
>Before dropping the clutch at 5k on dry pavement resulted in wheelhop


:eek: 5,000 rpm clutch drops... That is aking for big trouble. What year do you have? Your taking a big chance here... #1, you could shatter your differential.. #2, They could easily void your whole drivetrain warranty for hacking up your cradle bushings!! I wouldn't have done it.
 
#14 ·
I'm going to call King Bolt in Pomona, Ca tomorow and inquire about the washers. I believe I can get a single washer with double thickness also, just to make it more professional looking.
 
#16 ·
I'm going to call King Bolt in Pomona, Ca tomorow and inquire about the washers. I believe I can get a single washer with double thickness also, just to make it more professional looking.
If you find that 1/4" thick washer in a 1 3/4" that works then let us know where we can possibly find them. Thanks

One more thing, why do you need 1 3/4" for the rear bushings?
 
#37 ·
#22 ·
Are the washers you used 3" OD? So to do this job correctly you would need the following:

4: 3"OD, 1.25"ID, .25"TH
4: 3"OD, 1.75"ID, .25"TH
 
#23 ·
Yeah the 1.25" washers were 3" od. I'm thinking the 1.75" washers will end up being 3.5"OD so they may overhang a little bit but no big deal. So yes the parts list is:

4: 3"OD, 1.25"ID, .25"TH
4: 3"OD, 1.75"ID, .25"TH
12: Corona
2: Limes

I also added
1: Friend with 06 GTO equiped with Nancy girl brakes compared to the V :)
 
#27 ·
Yeah the 1.25" washers were 3" od. I'm thinking the 1.75" washers will end up being 3.5"OD so they may overhang a little bit but no big deal. So yes the parts list is:

4: 3"OD, 1.25"ID, .25"TH
4: 3"OD, 1.75"ID, .25"TH
12: Corona
2: Limes
Hey is it OK to sip single barrel bourbon while doing this job? :)

Hog, great info and thanks for the easy fix. Gotta love these inexpensive Home Depot/Lowes washer solutions!

Keep us abreast of the other 1/2 of the install with the larger 1.75" washers.

Feff
 
#24 ·
Help me out with the 3" OD? and the 1.25" ID? please
 
#29 ·
excellent!

and to think, you've outsmarted the gm engineers with $2.00 worth of parts. you sir, should be getting paid more.
I hope thats really the case. This seems a little too obvious to have taken 4 years to figure out, no matter how birdbrained wed like to imagine those engineers are. Id wonder if there are any potential negatives to doing it this way... i.e. wear on the washers, how theyll affect the bushings over time etc (even if they can be replaced easily). GM was obviously somewhat on to the bushing issue, I mean if I recall they upgraded or changed the bushings at some point right?
 
#30 ·
yes, that is something they will do to help if you come in complaining of wheel hop: upgrade the bushings.

however, sometimes i wonder if they look for more of the hi-tech, super engineered solution when really, the simple things can fix a lot. perhaps it doesn't completely erradicate the problem, but anything helps imho
 
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