This is going to be a thread about putting a cheap Ford 9 inch into a thirdgen with ladder bars.

Just some preliminary things; This is not for a daily driver car, this is going to be a car that I mainly race and bring out to car meets once a week. I could have also gone with a torque arm by using the Currie mount for a 9", but I've always wanted ladder bars since I bought the car at 15 y/o. This is not a thread to debate whether ladder bars are practical, or how I should have stayed with the stock suspension. This is my car and it is what I wanted. This is just to showcase what is involved in putting a 9" in a thirdgen with ladder bars. Take a lot of time to decide wether or not this setup would be right for your car, because I don't reccomend it for most people.

This is nowhere near bolt in suspension, so if you are not good with fabrication, I urge you to stay away from this yourself, or get a reputable shop to do the work.

I am an 18 year old in college and I don't have a ton of money for an expensive bolt in Moser 9, aftermarket torque arm, panhard bar, LCA's, springs, and shocks.

I was able to get a disk brake 9" with a trac-loc posi which was also the right width for $225. The housing was also good because it has the big bearing axle flanges so that I can run a much higher spline later on. I got the ladder bars and other hardware needed for about $350. I need to buy a good set of coilovers which will get the car back onits wheels.

Here's the rear end. It's out of a Lincoln Town car I think, which is also the same as the Lincoln Versailles 9". The housing is about 62 1/2 wide, which is just about the same width as the stock 10 bolt. When I pulled it apart, I was surprised to see that the ends had been ground down and made to be 28 spline ends, because the face of the axles had three dots, which would mean 31 spline. Oh well.




The first thing to note when thinking about going with ladder bars is that the rear end sits very high up in the body of the thirdgens which means you will need to cut out a signifigant portion of the rear floor from behind the front seats to where the rear seats are to give the ladder bars room to travel.
When you cut out the floor try to stay between the rear toque boxes so that you don't cut away the seam. The ladder bars should be as far apart as possible, but with where the toque boxes are on thirdgens, you don't have much of a choice. I am also using Competition Engineer's outside subframe connectors which let me place he ladder bar crossmember between them easily and have a solid place to weld them to.













As the pictures show, I have removed the d-bars that I previously put in so that I could cut further towards the transmission tunnel to fit the ladder bars as well as changing where I will connect the d-bar from the main hoop to. NHRA says that the d-bars need to either mount to the subframe, subframe connector, or the transmission tunnel on 6x6 plates. I am connecting mine to the ladder bar crossmember because that connects to the SFC's and will tie in everything pretty well for more strength.



Here's a picture that exemplafies why running ladder bars on the street is not a great idea. The stock factory suspension, as it travels up and down, will stay straight. When the rear travels with a ladder bar setup, it travels in an arc.



Hopefully this has helped some people so far. I know when I was thinking of doing this, there were not many pictures on how it would be set up, let alone a write up for ladder bars in this car. So that's what I'm trying to do here and helping anybody else that was in the same position as me. I still have a lot of work to do on it, but I will post regular updates on this project as well as how it does at the track when I get it out there.

 

wow thats awesome. is someone giving you a hand or this a creation purely of your own?

 

Thanks! It's all my own. I get an occasional hand from friends when help is needed, but I have done pretty much all the work myself.

 

quite impressive ill be honest. cant wait to see the finished product.

though in the end not sure it will be "cheaper" but the value of having something different and arguable better performing makes this project worth it

 

Yeah, in the end it's all just a lot of money being spent going with ladder bars and this 9" or with a Moser 9" and a UMI Crossmember mounted TA. I'm still going to drop a good amount of money on an aluminum center section, driveshaft, bearings, etc.

I just like working on it and furthering my fabrication skills

 

Had a little bit of time between my classes today so I decided to get some work done. I tacked the brackets for the ladder bars onto the crossmember so that I could start seeing how the rear end will sit during suspension travel and what I'll need to do to get the bars parallel with the body when sitting normally.




Ladder bars are ziptied to the housing in their approximate places. I still need to clearance the brackets a little more to get them further in to be perfectly straight with the crossmember brackets.

 

Got home from class and mocked up the rear and bars in the car at where the rear should be when sitting.
(Sorry for the crappy pictures. Cellphone cameras and darkness do not mix well)








Here you can see the mark I made on the concrete for the centerline of the axle at the correct wheelbase. It still needs to go back some which will happen from moving the crossmember back.


One thing I remembered about running this setup, I will have more space for a mini-tub because I won't have the stock coil perches, shock mounts, or LCA's to limit space. Instead I will be running some coil overs with a top backet that mounts between the frame rails where the stock gas tank used to be.

 

Just curious if the drop section of the crossmember will be hanging too low? Looks really low in the pics

 

That's been a concern of mine with the crossmember, It is very low in relation to everything and too low to feel comfortable while driving. I may angle it backwards, but then the brackets for the bars are still hanging down to where the drop section would be. I may just run a taller tire in the back to keep enough ground clearance.

 

crossmember looks fine to me.

 

It's about 2" below the transmission crossmember, so it is the lowest point on the bottom of the car. Once I have an exhaust setup on, it probably won't be bad.

I also wanted to ask you, did you have any problems with warpage on the 9" housing after welding the brackets for the ladder bars on? I have brackets that go around fully so I think I can keep it a bit straighter than just half brackets.

 

Here's a view from behind the ladder bar crossmember to show how it sits. I guess it doesn't look like it'll be that bad

 

When I originally did mine I can't remember if anything warped or not. When I narrowed a diff for the back half, I also installed a back brace and the diff did warp. Nothing the 50 ton press at work couldn't handle. Even still, it's probably not 100% warp free but it's close enough that nothing binds.

 

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Got back to working on this project today. I got the brackets for the ladder bars fitted to the 3.25 axle tube since they come with the opening being 3.00 inches.

Removed the factory brackets from the 9", which shed a few pounds off. Went through a lot of sawzall blades and a lot of 4.5" cutting disks due to the saw/grinder kicking back a lot.

Got kind of confused with my measurements at first because the driveline on the thirdgen is shifted to the right about ~1" and I was measuring where to put the ladder bar brackets thinking the pinion on the 9" was in the center. Fixed that and got the brackets tacked on.

 

Plans have changed on this project. I'm pulling the engine and transmission out to go into another thirdgen as my daily driver since I am currently without one.

That means I will be backhalving and putting some sort of big block in this purple one.

Here are some pictures of it off the jack stands and outside of the garage. It's been awhile.

 

niccceeee