pdejong

You can use the Anchor-Ford- mounts too. That's what I did in both my '83 S (RIP) and in my '90GT.
The Volvo mounts were too high in my GT. They made the bell housing hit the tunnel .

Peter deJong
Carleston, SC

'90 GT twin turbo

waynestrutt

I am doing the same thing just now. As soon as the weather breaks I will take the xmember off my 84 to put on my 80. At that time I will take pics. I know that the area where the new style mount sits is wider and more flat than the early style. I intend to use my fire wrench reshape the old style to suit if possible and drill the new holes.

mnotz

I am really thinking that there has to be a not too complicated way of making it work. I heard more than just "tales" of people have done so successfully in the past, I am just not sure how much "customization" went into the old style crossmember. Thanks to Roger and 928international I have all the bits and pieces on the way and as a worst case backup a new style crossmember that I can "steal" from my parts car if need be.

--Marcus

Jadz928

Customization on a x-brace used to mount the engine... gives me ajada.

Carl does it by splitting the bracket into 3 pieces and bolting them together, which is cool... but give me ajada as well.

xschop

Just heat the area with a blue-flame and hammertime. I have to re-drill my X-member holes for the LS swap mounts as well and there is an angle there that I may have to flatten with the torch and hammer.

mnotz

I just wanted to quickly follow up on this thread and post some old vs. new style cross member pictures, since I wasn't able to find any side by side shots of them when I was looking for information. I originally had planned to modify the old cross member, kind of like a proof of concept, but losing a few days of car-work-time with the blizzard up here didn't help and I just needed to get it done so I used the new style cross member. It's IMHO definitely doable to modify the old style cross member. It comes basically down to generous use of the "hot wrench" to heat and flatten the metal a bit more, moving the two small holes for the heat shields on each side further up and adding an additional hole for the new style MM's.

All set and done, the cross member conversion (you'll need some additional hardware - mostly nuts and bolts), OPG, MM, rack bushings and some other WYAIT items isn't a terrible job. It takes time, but that's about it. Not sure if I would recommend it to a complete mechanical novice, but anyone who is somewhat handy and has some decent tools can get it done.

I was contemplating re-using the old MM's, but decided against it...LMAO


Ok, here are a few side by side pictures of old vs. new. I hope they come in handy for someone down the road:

U-928

Thanks for the follow-up!

Jadz928

Nice work. Thanks for checking back in

hacker-pschorr

+1

It makes little sense to modify when the correct parts are so easily obtained. There isn't much of a demand for later style cross-members.

Good time to check the rod bearings and replace that leaking pan gasket

mnotz

Yup, sure is...did both and then some