Jim Berry

I want to change my current drum rear end to a disc rear end.

I was in the bone yard yesterday and I came across an '85 or '86 TA disc rear that had a tag attached to the ten bolt that said "SLIP RESISTANT, USE CORRECT FLUID". Anyone know what this means? Also, in the interior it had a small banner on the passenger side that read "PERFORMANCE HANDLING".

The trans and drive shaft were still hooked up and I could not turn the rear end more than an inch or so, but both wheels turned the same direction. The tranny appeared to be locked up as I could not shift it into neutral to get more rotation.

I grabbed the build sheet and some of the codes broke down to 3.73 rear with 9.50 saginaw, but didn't mention anything else.

Any iformation would be appreciated.

ede

the rear needs posi additive, ws6 suspension

Jim Berry

I went to the boneyard yesterday and no one had touched the T/A yet. I dropped the drive shaft and rotated the tires. Both moved in the same direction, forwards and backwards.

After I dropped the rear end out, I noticed an additional tag on the housing. It has a P/N on it and a second line that reads:
"Gear ratio 3.27 Serial No. 0603". It also has a nine bolt cover on it and "Borg-Warner" is on the bottom of the housing. It cost $100 bucks and a lot of wrenching.

Can you tell that I don't know a whole lot about the rear end yet? I also learned that pulling a rear end by yourself is a lot of work. Luckily, I was able to acquire a semi-wheeled shelf with a handlebar to move it to the check out counter.

RB83L69

Right, it's yerbasic 9-bolt. They're all posi (or "limited-slip", or "slip-resistant", or any of a number of other trade names for variations on the same principle of clutches that try to lock the axles together up to a point).

Like ede said, since you will of course be changing the fluid before you put it in, use a bottle of posi additive along with the synthetic gear lube that you will be using.

Every Trans AM variant I have ever seen, and nearly all of the plain Firebirds too, have the "Performance Suspension" badge on the dash. I'd be real surprised if your T/A doesn't have it too. AFAIK it is totally meaningless, just a piece of trim.