Ford 9" Rear End

[Ted Brown]

Sounds to me like he already has his mind made up... To each his own, I really like the feeling of leaving a stop light on the wood, with absolutely no tire spin and no cars even close... If you have your chassis setup to spin the tires, it needs changing, why? because the Man will hear and then see you... Then you will be walking for a spell... If you don't crash before that happens... Like I said before, like a 44 mag. in the hands of a child... I run a total of 2.77 rear gear counting the 33" tall tires...

 

[McDenny]

Well, ran into one problem so far. I was going to shorten the housing to about 52 1/2", I got the measurement from the 8" housing that came with my bucket. I figured I would keep the same width. After pulling the 9" apart, I have the 31 spline axles. I was going to shorten 1 side 3" and the other 5" to center the carrier in the car, so it would look good and even from the rear. I found out I have to shorten atleast 4" in order to respline a axle. Considering I was only going to shorten one side 3", that is out unless I want to buy new axles. So, here is my thoughts, it will be 2" narrower then my original 8" housing. The housing will be about 50 1/2 wide, flange to flange, not axle to axle. I have asked a few local guys if they thought that was too narrow, the said no. The body of my car is approx 41". Any thoughts if you think this is too narrow before I send the axles out to have them resplined? The car is all apart, so I cant really "mock" it up, and I do not have brake hardware to set everything up. Any thoughts??

 

[McDenny]

Sounds to me like he already has his mind made up... To each his own, I really like the feeling of leaving a stop light on the wood, with absolutely no tire spin and no cars even close... If you have your chassis setup to spin the tires, it needs changing, why? because the Man will hear and then see you... Then you will be walking for a spell... If you don't crash before that happens... Like I said before, like a 44 mag. in the hands of a child... I run a total of 2.77 rear gear counting the 33" tall tires...

Hey Ted, that is one thing I haven't found out yet, tire size. I haven't ordered any gear sets yet. I am still working on shortening the housing and axle
lengths. I am going to put a locker, but I do want the car to hook up, and not sit and burn the tires off. I thought about keeping the 2.75 to 1 ratio, I dont want to run tall on the RPM's, and running BBC with a TH400, I would like the RPM's low, they only hold so much fuel :jawdrop: And, after all it is only a carrier, gear changes arent that bad on a 9".

 

[Ted Brown]

If it were me, I would leave that gear in that third member, one Day you could borrow a low gear from a friend, just to see how much different it is... I would also keep that rear housing stock, if you ever hurt it, you can get axles any place.. I would get wheels that are all to the inside, brakes will be totally hidden, inside the wheels, much easier and you will still have the same look, and something that can be repaired easy and cheap!

 

[McDenny]

If it were me, I would leave that gear in that third member, one Day you could borrow a low gear from a friend, just to see how much different it is... I would also keep that rear housing stock, if you ever hurt it, you can get axles any place.. I would get wheels that are all to the inside, brakes will be totally hidden, inside the wheels, much easier and you will still have the same look, and something that can be repaired easy and cheap!

Too late for that Ted, I already cut one side and removed the piece from the center section. I am going to cut the other side tomorrow. I thought about keeping it the same width, but I thought it would be too wide, I wasnt really sure, I had nothing to compare it too. Plus, I want to see if I could do it.

 

[Ted Brown]

Too late for that Ted, I already cut one side and removed the piece from the center section. I am going to cut the other side tomorrow. I thought about keeping it the same width, but I thought it would be too wide, I wasnt really sure, I had nothing to compare it too. Plus, I want to see if I could do it.

Well it will be a good test, just test it on none well traveled back roads, to make sure it holds up, you don't want to hurt yourself or anyone else... Good luck with that project

 

[McDenny]

Well it will be a good test, just test it on none well traveled back roads, to make sure it holds up, you don't want to hurt yourself or anyone else... Good luck with that project

I will make sure I check it out good after its on the road. I still need to order the bat wings and shock mounts to weld on. I am going to chamfer the edge of the tubes on the driveshat machine to make sure they will press in easy and straight. I will glass bead it tomorrow and get it clenaed up and primed.

 

[McDenny]

A new housing may be in order :suicide:

 

[McDenny]

OK, first dilemma, well not the first, the first was taking the housing apart. I cut the tubes from the center section with a chop saw, was careful and cut right down the middle of the welds on both sides, I cut one side at a time. First side the tube came out hard, ofcourse you learn what not to do on the first side. :jawdrop: Second side came right apart, cut the weld, ground the end a little, and pressed from the inside out with a porta power. I cleaned the center section and ran a cylinder hone through the tube bores. I put the tubes in the driveshaft machine and used emery paper to clean the ends that need to be pressed in. I made lines on each tube to line up with the weld so when I pressed them back in, each flange will be about in the same position.

I put the center section on the press, lined everything up, and started to press it in. now mind you, I am using our "small" press that you do by hand, the tube when in about 1" and stopped, looked straight, so I went a little more, nothing, so I removed from the press to take a look. Everything looked fine, tried it one more time and nothing. I then decided to press the tube back out to see what was going on.

Take a look at these pictures. I just figured Ford used a tapered tube to line things up, not the case, the center section in actually a little smaller in one spot. I guess I will have to have the tubes turned down on the ends to make this work........

 

[2old2fast]

Mcd, all the housings I've seen shortened were done by taking a section out of the tubes, ends were left in place. just an observation dave

 

[RPM]

All of the housings we have shortened, we cut through the weld out at the wheel bearing flange. Then used a jig to line it all back up and reweld. The center of that 9" is pretty fragile I would think for pressing on it. It might warp.

 

[one finger john]

All of the housings we have shortened, we cut through the weld out at the wheel bearing flange. Then used a jig to line it all back up and reweld. The center of that 9" is pretty fragile I would think for pressing on it. It might warp.

Hey, what a second! Thats not a Ford rear end! What's going on around here?

 

[McDenny]

Mcd, all the housings I've seen shortened were done by taking a section out of the tubes, ends were left in place. just an observation dave

Hey Dave,
I read about that and looked into it. I figured I would try it to see if I could do it. So far it went well until I went to press then back in. I really couldnt believe how eady they pressed out when I cut the welds off. Pressing them back in might be another story !!!!

 

[McDenny]

All of the housings we have shortened, we cut through the weld out at the wheel bearing flange. Then used a jig to line it all back up and reweld. The center of that 9" is pretty fragile I would think for pressing on it. It might warp.

Yea, you are right, there isnt much steel there, not to thick. I figured I would just try it. I thought about cutting the tubes, then butt welding, or cutting of the flange / bearing ends and then have them pressed and welded back on. I was just looking into something I could do with out sending the housing out, guess I should of at this point.

 

[RPM]

Hey, what a second! Thats not a Ford rear end! What's going on around here?

That is a Dana 60. It came out of a 3/4 ton truck, it had the big brakes and full floating axles on it when I got it. I cut that off with a band saw, then used big Pontiac ends. Because I had some left over. Got the axles from Moser. They can make any spline in any length with any bearing combo. So mixing all those parts was not a problem. Moser is great to deal with I might add, ordered axles on Monday morning, they were on the door step Thursday afternoon.

http://www.moserengineering.com/

 

[Mike]

Moser is great to deal with I might add, ordered axles on Monday morning, they were on the door step Thursday afternoon.

http://www.moserengineering.com/

+1

Anyone I've ever dealt with at Moser has been very helpful and they must have an entire battalion of elves that produce parts for them, because delivery is always timely.

 

[McDenny]

OK, had the end of the tubes turned down to similiar size that I removed, recleaned the housing, and pressed them in no problem. Intalled the carrier today just to get axle measurement's so I can send them to Moser for shortening. Looks like one will br 4" shorter and the other about 6 1/2". I have not rewelded the housing yet, figured I would wait to make sure everything fits ok :thumb: Still need to regear the carrier.

I have a Total Performace 8" housing with bat wings and shock mounts already on it, any idea what that is worth?

 

[McDenny]

OK, check this out. I received a email from Moser with a tracking number to send my axles back to me. They were suppose to be delivered today. I received a phone call this afternoon from a gentleman saying he had a package for you. I was a bit confused until he told me he was driving down the road and saw a box in the road so he stopped to pick it up. It was my axles, they must of fell out of the UPS truck. I called Moser and talked to Kip and got the tracking number, he kind of laughed and said that was a first he had heard of that. I called UPS and told them what happened, gave them the gentleman's phone number so they could go to his address to pick them up and then deliver them to me, along with a damage claim form just in case, I haven't heard anything from them yet. They were suppose to call me a hour or so after I called them, that was about 8 hrs ago. Nice, huh?

 

[Corley]

UPS! Love'm... They have the best service in our area, BUT! When I saw on their tracking site that a package had been marked as deliverred by them last week, but had not been received here, I called them. The next day a neighbor (about 10 houses away) called me to say he had my package, which had been deliverred to his house by mistake. I went and got it, but decided to wait and let UPS sweat for a while on their mistake, since they said they'd call back "within one hour". I'm still waiting for that call... So much for good delivery service these days...