Anyone bult their own rearend? I have a spare 9" and a spare 10bolt. Its very tempting to do some cutting welding and creating my own. i figure with lil mod. the stock brackets could fit and i could cuth the rear down to my own lengthand new axles and a spool and im in there. What do you think???

 

You'll need to mount the torque arm.

 

do a search. I have read of alot of people doing these swaps.

 

Unless you're very good at fabrication, you might not want to do it.

First of all you'll need a housing roughly the same width of a third gen's. Mine is out of a 1970 F100. Same width but the pinion is offset 2" to the passenger side because both axles are the same length. Very few people have the knowledge or the tooling to shorten a diff and keep it straight.

I cut off all the bracketry from a 10 bolt housing and welded it onto the 9" housing for the shocks, springs and panhard bar. I use ladder bars so I didn't have to worry about attaching a good strong torque arm mount (do a search). An aftermarket adjustable panhard bar is used to keep the diff centered in the car for the ladder bars.

I use Ford drum brakes since my rims are a dual bolt pattern. It makes adapting a brake system so much easier than trying to figure out how to use GM brakes on a Ford axle. Aftermarket axles with the small Ford bolt pattern to work with the car's brake drums. I went to the local auto parts store and looked at many brake drums until I found some lightweight ones that would fit. Most Ford drums for 11" brakes have huge cooling fins on them which I didn't need.

My center section is a standard 9" cast iron piece with a Strange spool and gears of unknown make.

When I finally bolted it all in, the cost was probably about half what an aftermarket bolt-in 9" would cost.

Junkyard housing - Can't remember but probably about $50 or less.
New brakes, hardware, seals, bearings, drums - Somewhere in the $200-$300 range. Again, it was a long time ago.
Strange 31 spline axles with Ford bolt pattern $800
Center section with spool and gears ready to go in, private sale - $600
New brake lines - $10
There's probably more misc stuff like oil etc but that's the bulk of it and not counting the cost of the ladder bars and all the related hardware to put them in.

Total is roughly $1600 - $1700 in Canadian funds and that was a few years ago. At the time a complete aftermarket bolt in 9" was $2000 US. They're now closer to $2500.

You could always find ways to go cheaper but then you're not going to get many performance parts. Use a factory Ford posi (or whatever Ford calls it) and gears. Even using factory 28 spline 9" axles are stronger than anything in the 10 bolt. Trying to find a car 9" the proper width with 31 spline axles might be almost impossible.

You can still go a cheap route by buying an aftermarket bare housing package. It includes the bolt in housing with axles. You provide the center section and brakes. Cost is less than $1000 US.

 

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...ight=axle+swap

 

thanks chris for the link. well regardless of doubt or criticism I'm going to attempt this. i believe instead of making a ta mount i will contact moser and buy the assembly from them. I will most likely end up with a spool and aftermarket axles so that should help make this job easier i will try to document the job as i go. It will prob be a month or so till i get started, just picked the rear up last night so i have some cleaning,measuring to do. Later aaron

 

i shortened a 9in for a 67 bird and managed to keep her perfectly straight, took me a few days to complete, but it was alotta fun! good luck man! if you have ne questions on technique or nething in general pm me...

 

there are some simple tools and fixtures you can buy, or make if you have acess to a lathe to keep it straight.

 

Not an F-Body, but the concept is the same:

http://malibunorth.freeservers.com/Ford_9.htm

Mathius

 

?? Computer stuff is the same as a 9"?

 

well i tried to get the ta mount from moser and apparently they will not sell it. I then called currie and they sold it to me. I believe mosers looks stronger so if anyone has a pic is like to see the ta mount not sure if ill have to strengthen the currie version. If nothing else the people at currie were very helpful and knowledgable.

 

Sorry, should have been:

http://malibunorth.freeservers.com/Ford_9.htm

Mathius

 

I used a few Currie parts in my mudracing days,and I assure you,if Currie makes it,you WON'T break it,and if by some freak of nature you did,Currie stands behind their stuff 100%

 

Any 11 inch brake drum from an early 80's half ton van willnot have cooling fins. only the older one from late 60's to early 70'S had them. Get them from a van and you will not have fitment problems.

 

So a 9" from a fullsize van is the way to go? opinions? I'll be looking for a jyard rear this spring thanks to these threads!

 

Only if you're willing to cut a few inches out of the width. Van diffs are really wide. They also have a large truck bolt pattern on the rims.

Ford car bolt pattern drum brakes are easy to swap around. First you need to be aware of the different bearing sizes since each use a different type of backing plate.

When I went searching for a housing, I wanted one that was close the a third gen width and had the large bearing. Large bearing axles can be easily identified by the use of 1/2" bolts holding the backing plate on. Then I went looking for a large bearing backing plate for 11" brakes since the diff I found used smaller brakes. All the other brake parts I bought new. Wheel cylinders, shoes, hardware etc. As I mentioned above, I went to the parts store and was shown many different brake drums for the Ford 11" brakes since they are used on many different vehicles until I found some that didn't have the huge cooling fins on them and had the Ford 5x4.5" bolt pattern. Too bad I can't remember what they were for.

 

i recently finished fabbing my 9". torque arm bracket and all. used brakes out of a rear disk TA. I didn't shorten the rear. Tires stick out about 3" on each side. Don't really care though. video reveals a rising rear end at launch so I'm not worried about the tires. This route wasn't hard. Just took some time. I will shorten later but for now with M/T drag radials, its fine.