Best Diff. Cover with Studs

[ConElite]

Best Diff cover. I was looking at the TA cover but I heard that the stud's are not included and are about an extra $20? Where is the best place to buy one b/c I dont care to do anymore buisness with Tbyrne. Takes to long and customer service is horrible. Or should I just get a Summit Cover with the studs? I wanna reenforce my rearend just a tad. And since im changing the gear oil i figure why not change the cover. I also plan to Sandblast the axle and paint it to dress it up a bit.


Opinions?

Costs?

[Christopherrr]

You can always check out ThunderRacing...done plenty business with them without and issues. I'm a happy camper.

I didn't know TA covers didn't come with studs...any particular reasons why you can't use your stock studs?

[darkhorsecustoms]

The Moser Engineering cover is a nice piece. Put one on a buddy's '83 trans am after we swapped in one of their 12 bolts. What studs are you talking about? Most of the diff covers I've seen that offer stud kits are referring to the main cap studs for the diff itself. All the covers should actually come with the studs that press down on the main caps.

[MunsonGTA]

i have the TA performance 9 bolt cover for my car. great part and great service.

[Injuneer]

You can always check out ThunderRacing...done plenty business with them without and issues. I'm a happy camper.

I didn't know TA covers didn't come with studs...any particular reasons why you can't use your stock studs?

The studs he is referring to are not the studs (bolts) that hold the cover on the housing. They are bearing cap pre-load studs, located in the center of the cover, and screw in until they push lightly against the backs of the bearing caps, to reduce cap walk under heavy loads. There is a lock-hut to hold each stud in position.

I have an LPW cover that came with my Strange 12-bolt. Beefy. I doubt there is much differrence in brands though.



Surprised you had a problem with T. Byrne... I haven't bought anything for my car from anyone in a long time, but a lot of my parts came from T. Byrne with excellent service. I have also had excellent results with Thunder Racing though. Summit and JEGS sell virtually any popular parts for low $$$, and their "fixed" service/shipping charge is often less than most others.

[ConElite]

The studs he is referring to are not the studs (bolts) that hold the cover on the housing. They are bearing cap pre-load studs, located in the center of the cover, and screw in until they push lightly against the backs of the bearing caps, to reduce cap walk under heavy loads. There is a lock-hut to hold each stud in position.

Bingo, THanks Fred

Yeah Im looking to change the cover and have the Cap Stud supports to give it a little more reassurence of my rear NOT going BOMB when i decide to do this

Thanks for the input guys. Im going to order the Summit or TrickFlow. Same price. Everything included. Im starting to like the TrickFlow one.

[Christopherrr]

The studs he is referring to are not the studs (bolts) that hold the cover on the housing. They are bearing cap pre-load studs, located in the center of the cover, and screw in until they push lightly against the backs of the bearing caps, to reduce cap walk under heavy loads. There is a lock-hut to hold each stud in position.

Ah...now I understand. I never knew the difference between a stock cover and "loading" cover.

[Injuneer]

You also gain a fill and a drain hole.

[MunsonGTA]

here is a picture of my ta performance 9 bolt cover. the picture was much clearer, but i had reduce the quality to post it. you could always try to get a group purchase going. i know with TA performance, we did a group purchase with 18 people. we basically got the girdle, stud kit, and shipping for the price of the actual part.. 160. i know when they did our group purchase, they also included the GM 10 bolt cover, so we could get more people in with us. i'd look around on some of the car boards and see if anybody has a group purchase going with them.

[MunsonGTA]

i just went back and looked it up. for having more then 10 people in on our group purchase, we got the cover, the stud kit, and shipping for 155. the cover alone runs 159.95 regular.

[Al 96 Ram Air T/A]

I went with this model: It's actually a Summit unit, before they got all fancy. I polished the center bar to a mirror finish, and used polished 316 SS bolts all around. Wanted a little flash to show off all of the undercarriage work I did during the suspension upgrades.

The preload studs were included...at the time.