Hotchkiss Rear End

[Quezzmo]

I bought an 80's era T-Bucket. I thought, and was told, that the rear was a ford 9". It looked like a 9" Ford but after cleaning a layer of undercoating and a layer of canary yellow paint off of the third member I got to the true identity of my rear end. It's a GM "hotchkiss" rear. The third member installs from the front like the Ford. The problem I have is that it is a single track rear end and I planned to make it a posi. How hard is it to make a hotchkiss rear end a posi? The other issue is that after cleaning it up it's beautiful. The rear housing is chrome and is cleaning up great, the drive shaft, coil springs and stabolizer componenents are also chrome. I don't want to change the whole thing if I don't have to. The picture was taken before I started cleaning. It looks great now.http://www.tbucketeers.com/index.ph...=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=4548

 

[putz]

Did a little reading on the hotchkiss rearend and it sounds like it is a pretty weak link in the system they say a 327 that hooks up can scatter parts sorry to say. Here is the link to the conversation. But this could just be one persons opinion to.
Hotchkiss link

 

[Quezzmo]

Thanks for the link. I'm hoping that my set up is not as weak as that thread implies. This car had a 396 in it that was removed by the previous owner. I bought the rolling chassis and I'm putting a 380hp(+/-) 350 in it.
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[RPM]

You should be fine. Chevy used that rear end from 55-64 including the 62 409-425 HP big cars and it held up OK.Your T does not weigh anywhere near as much as a 62 Chevy Impala. There are posi units available for them, search Ebay.

 

[Fast Eddy]

Using the same rear in my t however the third member has a raised P on it making it a factory posi a couple of guys around me used them in their early stock cars with out to many problems.

 

[LarryH]

If it's just a cruiser (not alot of burn outs and no racing) you should be fine. From personal experience i can tell you the Hotchkiss doesn't like to be run hard. I had a '62 Bel Air with a 301 (Duntov 30/30 cam, 10:1 compression, old Corvette intake, Holley 650 spreadbore, headers and 3 speed) and i went through a couple of rear ends before i totaled the car.

 

[jcunning]

Same rearend as mine. Came out of a 57 Chevy. Mine is a posi unit and I've done some pretty hard launches with it and have had no problems. I like the fact that it is a Chevy as most everything is in my bucket.

 

[Mike]

The rear is going to work just fine for what you're trying to do. Parts are getting pretty scarce for those rears, but it is plenty strong enough for your application.

People are correct when they say something like 9" Ford is strong, but that ring and pinion layout is a real horsepower thief. It's hard to hurt one, but it's also hard to turn one. We used a fabricated rear axle housing in the race car, designed to use 9" Ford components. We then used the Strange Engineering 12 bolt drop out, which used a GM 12 bolt gear set.

The pinion in a 9" Ford is 2.250" below center of the ring gear, whereas the 12 bolt is only 1.50" below center. That combination is about 3% more efficient and it was also some 8 or 9 lbs. lighter than the equivalent Ford pieces.

Back in the mid-70's, we built an A/ED using an early Olds rear end. And if you can believe it, we managed to find a mag center section for it. :hi: And we never had a lick of trouble with it, which was really hard to believe. I'm telling my age again, but for those who can remember John Lingenfelter's blue, Ness A/ED, he ran 7.69 with that car at the World Finals. We bought that motor and ran 7.70 with it, just about everywhere, so the car was no slouch.

 

[Ted Brown]

The main problem with those Chevy rear housings, was thin material, so complete rapping (all the way around the housing) of most all new brackets helps form tearing the radius rod brackets, etc. out of the housing...

 

[Quezzmo]

Good info! I feel better about the set up that I have, at least it'll get me rolling and it shouldn't explode at first push. I'll keep an eye out for a posi unit. Two black stripes are cool, one really long one is whole lot less cool. Tom

 

[Ted Brown]

Good info! I feel better about the set up that I have, at least it'll get me rolling and it shouldn't explode at first push. I'll keep an eye out for a posi unit. Two black stripes are cool, one really long one is whole lot less cool. Tom

Tom, you will find that a light car does not really NEED a posi, as much as a heavy car... Light cars can usually spin both tires, unless it is set up for the drags... Then, a Chevy rear housing needs a bit more metal holding the brackets to the housing, and big 4 bar type bushings to ease the leverage on the housing... Have fun..