75ZT Community

As some of you may know we or you may have had trouble with the lower engine mount on your R75 or MGZT and the difficulty in obtaining the OEM mounts and the cost of them if you have been able to obtaim them. I/you/we have gone down the road of trying powerflex mounts Red for diesel and Yellow for petrol with some good reports and some not so good reports of there use.

Some members have reported bad vibrations some have reported that the car is now smoother so the real reason for this thread is to try and gauge what and how the engine mounts you have fitted are working with your car now in the past and the near future.

Another reason is there is a new mount on the block so to speak from (roverlink)a chinese mount used on the Roewe/MG i am at the moment testing one of these and must say first impressions are very good no vibrations smooth gear change and also it is as near to the OEM mount as you can get if not better.

I am in talks with powerflex and Brown & Gammon at the moment with regards to the Red and Yellow mounts which i will reveal later after they have got back to me over a certain problem i/we have had with the mount,they have informed me of modifed or newer version which is in the process of being made and have also asked me to road test a couple which i am willing to do and report back to them and you the members.

But at the the moment we are testing three kind of mounts well four if your including the new OEM mount on my MG ZT

OEM fig 1
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Powerflex fig 2 on a few cars both Red and yellow

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Powerflex Red Diesel mount with a original metal and nylon insert from a OEM mount on trebors car cheers Rob.fig 3
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Chinese (roverlink)Roewe/MG mount on my Diesel tourer Fig 4/5
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Hopefully this last mount (roverlink) is going to be the one which will out last the cars life but we will see in time, please feel free to add your thoughts you have experienced on this subject and if you have any good or bad points on any or all of the mounts involved that way we can gauge which is best of the bunch cheers Arctic.

You replaced mine with the red Powerflex some time ago Steve and I've had no problems.

When I started looking at the Mount , the options were OEM ( rimmers @nearly 90 quid) or the Ford 2nd hand at 20-30.
Since then the powerflex has appeared.
I found a cheepy Ford new one at 22 quid (tightwad )probably a clone from the far east , but not sold as such ?..
It shook my auto so much, it was unusable.

Some of this was the small end fouling the Engine side bracket under load, so this came off and got filed up to clear the mount small end.
But still shook the car, but not so much.

Dug around a bit on the web and found although this was advertised for all Mondeo's there was in fact a difference .. the diesels had a hole or recess in the top and bottom rubber section and the petrols seem to miss this .

So I was a bit stuck , the mount I had showed a dimple but no hole . so I drilled them out, with rubber being a bit err ? ,rubbery a bit tricky, but lots tries with a very sharp drill and I have 2 10mm ( ish) holes .. this has improved the mount dramatically. its just got a tiny bit of vibration when first pulling away when cold and the car is over fueling slightly after that its pretty good, very close to my slight soggy/split old OEM mount ,
and from other reports probably at least as good as the current Powerflex ?.

This one would most likely be very good on a Petrol car too ?.

Time will tell on the life of this modded Ford after my drillings ,which can only weaken the rubber ,
but at least now the New chinese looks like an option.

I've been very wary of the quality of OEM nowadays ,
the name OEM means little nowdays with there being no MGR to control the quality.
Parts can come from anywhere in the world nowadays,( well they probably did before ) with now with no quality control!.

Just call it it OEM and your away !!

Mr cynical

Chris.

Mine still seems to be ok Steve, but will check in a few weeks, but certainly the vibration has not come back.

Maybe the chinese one is the way to go, what do they cost ?

raistlin wrote:You replaced mine with the red Powerflex some time ago Steve and I've had no problems.

HI Paul.
The Red powerflex are getting a mixed view some are saying they are getting bad vibrations some have complained of a total breakdown of the bush but this could be to other components being perished IE lower wishbone bushes split or cracked i have also found that most whom complain of vibrations are the manual cars owners maybe because of the clutch judder etc, got an email from (roverlink)Kenny this morning and he informs me that in a couple of weeks he will also have nylon bush i presume this is the centre piece only as a full nylon bush would be far to hard and shake the car to bits, but if you can Paul please report if down the coming months if you find any difference with the mount and or vibrations you may think be coming from it. Arctic.

Trebor wrote:Mine still seems to be ok Steve, but will check in a few weeks, but certainly the vibration has not come back.

Maybe the chinese one is the way to go, what do they cost ?

Hi Rob.
remember you have the powerflex with the OEM metal & Nylon centre fitted so we can check it out in a few weeks months as i say i took my powerflex off to exchange it for the Chinese one (roverlink) to test it and its still as new as when i fitted it, and i am still in talks with B&G also powerflex about your one and they say in a couple of weeks they will send me an upgrade to test Arctic.

Maybe the chinese one is the way to go, what do they cost ?[/quote](£55) at the moment but am in talks with him about a discount for members or buying more than one)


PS Regarding we need to make sure chinese one is the way to go, what do they cost ?[/quote]Rob they cost (£55) at the moment but am in talks with him about a discount for members or buying more than one)but would need to know if they are going to be the best thats out there first which from first thoughts they maybe and could out last the car or at least last as long if not longer than the OEM ones

HI Chris.
Have not had any experience or dealing with the Ford mount but again have heard on the grapevine that they to give out bad vibrations so can not really comment on them but thank you for your input it all counts to finding out the best part for our cars etc.

Hi Steve,

talking mostly dizzles here! after all we are the ones with biggest vibes
Hopefully these new ones might show some improvement ?

But my slight concern with all this is:
We all seemed to agree once that the Diesel and the Petrol variants used to have a different hardnesses of Rubber in the original MGR mounts, and that one was not suitable for the other .

And now here we are looking at single mount that appears to be sold as suitable for both ?.

Also Not sure which car this new Chinese mount is from, as I don't think the Rouwe 750 has a diesel variant and the only Diesel in their range is 550 which is a different car ( well supposedly based on the 75 ?).

But its all in the rubber !!

I find the biggest judder problem with my Auto, when its in Drive or reverse and you are holding it on the brake ready to go !!

I'll keep with this Fordy for the time being, mainly due to the weather and not having a garage! , and We might have a conclusion by the time the sun pops out !

Chris

Hi Chris
I have put this question of yours to Kenny from roverlink i will post his answer when i get it cheers Arctic

I replaced my O.E.M. Lower engine mount last August,so far no vibration,after a very thorough inspection,I kept the O.E.M. L.E.M. just in case,as it was showing no signs of wear or ageing. As I have said so far no sign of any vibration or harshness, I hope this helps Steve.
Bill (shy talk)

shy talk wrote:I replaced my O.E.M. Lower engine mount last August,so far no vibration,after a very thorough inspection,I kept the O.E.M. L.E.M. just in case,as it was showing no signs of wear or ageing. As I have said so far no sign of any vibration or harshness, I hope this helps Steve.
Bill (shy talk)

Hi Bill.
Yes any info is most welcome and yours seems to have been on 12 months now and all is ok so this could point to the fact then that other parts could make a difference ie lower wishbone bushes if not in good condition could put stress on the engine mount bush Arctic.

We are now 7 months down the road with regards to the powerflex fitting to Robs car which had the original metal and nylon insert and from what he as reported so far it is still ok.

A new development was discussed at the recent nano 6-7th July with Paul (raistlin) after about 8 months he is now feeling some vibrations and hopefully in the next few days or coming week i hope to have a look at the Red powerflex which was fitted to his car (Auto) to see what kind of state the mount is in now, if it is ok i will change the centre with the original metal and nylon insert hopefully solving the vibrations if not we need to look at the new modified mount from powerflex which is now Yellow with slots.

Below you will see i have some of these in my possession and have modifed them yet again with the original metal and nylon insert thus in theory giving us the best of both worlds a modifed lower engine mount with it's original centre at half the cost of a new OEM, again only time will tell.Arctic.

Hello all, long time lurker first time poster here…

I have had my beloved Rover 75 diesel for 12 years, but ever since the clutch and slave cylinder was changed 4 years ago at around 120k (currently at 165k) it has juddered when pulling away. It shifts between gears as smooth as silk, but pulling off the line takes real concentration to get the revs just right, and some days there is nothing I can do to prevent the engine jack rabbiting. In stop-start traffic it can be borderline un-drivable, luckily my daily commute is all motorway.

Back in 2011 before this thread was created I tried resolving the problem by upgrading the lower engine mount using the PowerFlex PFF63-609 and PFF63-608 mounts, unfortunately this made no difference.

Visually the other mounts seemed in perfect condition so I assumed the issue was with the DMF which was not changed when the clutch was changed. I decided to live with the judder until I absolutely had to take the gearbox out.

Now the diesel specific PFF63-610 mount is available do you think it’s worth me trying, or does it sound like I have another issue?

As Steve says above i have replaced my mount and it is still performing ok but I have another issue and juddering as you explain above, my theory is the DMF to be honest as wishbone bushes also changed and other mounts appear ok

Thread revisit regarding the lower engine mount, some 4yrs time have passed since I/we looked at lower engine mounts, the original OEM mount for a diesel which had a letter T stamped on it as all but disappeared, a few are still about but are expensive £70 or so, the yellow power flex is still being used to good effect.

As above a few did try the Ford Mondeo/Jaguar mount but found it to be harsh and give off a lot of vibration.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FOR-FORD-MON ... SwtGlZBxU8

I have again recently looked into this a little more, history knows we had to fettle the small end of the mount in the width to make it fit, ie saw a little off so it became the same width as the original on our R40, I also have a knew that you could shave some off the alloy in the same area to help stop the vibration, I have checked this out and found in my opinion this could compromise the mount in that area, because the amount that would need grinding off is quite significant.

Therefore I looked in a different direction, I took the bracket from the engine side that the mount fixes too off a car, I then decided that if you ground down the mount in the area where the jag mount bolts to it by about 4mm the mount would clear the bracket and eliminate the vibration that I found was being caused by the mount knocking against the bracket.


Here below are the latest photo's of the bracket and how the original mount fits to it and also showing how the Jag mount fouls the bracket.

First photo is showing the small edge of the mount and how the Jag one is wider.
1

Next showing how they are the same length but the alloy of the Jag mount is wider, making it more stronger across.
2

The Jag mount having the section sawn off so it is the same width as the original mount, this enables it to fit into the bracket attached to the engine.
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The original mount and the Jag mount side by side, jag mount having been sawn.
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The jag mount fitted to the car you can see how the small end is connecting to the bracket thus giving off the vibration with the mount.
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There is a little gap at the bottom of the mount and the bracket but once the car is lowered that is lost, also at the upper end of the bracket there is no such gap it is touching.
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Here you see the bracket off the car and on the work bench with an original mount fitted to it, even though it does not have the large insert fitted.
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Here once again an original mount but this time with the large insert being exchanged for the power flex, albeit a petrol large mount insert, as I did not have a diesel one at the time of doing this experiment.
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You can clearly see there is plenty of space between the engine bracket and the mount.
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Now I tried a jag mount which as had the edge ground down as much as I would have liked, any more and in my opinion it will compromise the strength of the mount in that area, note I have not ground it all round the small end just the top part.
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Once fitted to the bracket you can clearly see it is fouling the bracket even though it as been ground down to what I think it should and no more.
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On close up it looks to be about 1mm clear
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But in fact I could not get the thin blade of the knife in the photo between the alloy mount and the bracket.
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When I turned over the bracket to see the lower part of the mount it was fouling the bracket more so.
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This would mean that the alloy Jag mount would need to be ground down around the end completely by a lot more than I did thus compromising the mount.

The answer lies in the bracket, because it is so robust and strong you can afford to grind off the edge which meets the Jag alloy mount by 4mm top and bottom.
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Therefore grind off the 4mm on a stone.
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Then put the bracket in a vice and finish it off with a file.
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Re-fit the jag mount to the bracket and test the gap space between the to points which before were touching, you now hav ethe same amount of gap as an original when it is fitted to an unground bracket.
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This should make the Jag the next best mount to the original mount at a third of the cost of an original mount, and half the cost of the after market ones doing the rounds.
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This will of cause take a little more time than just fitting an original mount, after market mount, I doubt also that a garage will want to remove and rework the bracket, if they do they are going to charge you, therefore you would have lost the amount in cost of purchasing a jag mount apposed to an original one with the letter T stamped on it, I may purchase a few brackets and get them ready for the nano meets ? but that is not going to be this years season.

Hopefully this will help those whom would like to tackle this job for themselves cheers Arctic.


showing the fact that the mount if

Nice bit of lateral thinking there, Steve.

Fantastic "How to" Steve!