how hard is it to fabricate/modify an old 9" to fit one of our cars? 12 bolts and 9" inches are like 2k new...that's obscene....id like to think i could go to an old junkyard, find a 70-90's ford truck and make it fit for a fraction of the price....500$ and 50 hours of my life is better then 2200$ and still having to install it.

1#- wheel offset, are the 9"s too wide?

2#- will the brakes mount?

3#- non C-clip converted to work?

how much would have to be done to make it work and have the wheels be in the factory location and not out of place? do you need new axles to handle fcar disc brakes?

 

if i were doing it i'd trash everything but the center section. weld on new tubes and brake mounting flanges. you can buy flanges and make or buy fixture for alighning the tubes. you'd need to make provisions for a torque arm mount. not really hard to do and since you'd be doing all this i'd make a new adjustable torque arm. wouldn't really be hard to do if you'd got experience fabricating steel and use to and understand how to fixture the parts to hold them in place. i'd build a fixture around the 10 bolt to locate all the mounting hardwear and to use it to locate it to the 9".

 

1. Maybe

2. No

3. No.... they don't use C-clips in the first place


What ede said (takes care of 1 & 2)

 

i know they don't come with cclips, thats why i asked if it could be converted to cclip so it would work.

fabricating steel? hmmm....that sounds about 10 years out of my experience range....unless "fabricating" means buying steel and welding it

 

Theres a guy on ebay who sells the complete housing with axles etc, for round 900, so depending on how cheap you could get the center section, you may be able to save a lot of cash, a lot of time, and keep from having a hackjob axle setup.

 

What would C-clips do in a rear end whose design doesn't use them? How would having the axles retained in the ancient manner (like a 9-bolt has its, for example) prevent it from "working"?

What is the real issue? Have you torn up a 10-bolt somehow? If so, how?

 

9 bolt has its axles retained in an ancient manner, yet they are non c clip .......

 

doesn't sound practical or worth it....oh well....

 

What's the big deal about C-clips? Why do you think they're "required" somehow?

In a C-clip rear end, the axle slides into the bearing, and it itself is the inner race; then the C-clip retains the axle. The "ancient" way of retaining axles is to press a ball or bearing onto them, some designs even put a retaining nut on over that to hold the axle in the bearing, then bolt the bearing into the axle tube with a retaining plate. Especially with the ones that use a backing nut, it's damn near impossible for the axle to come out; way too much stuff has to fail in order for that to happen. Sort of the purpose of NHRA's anti-C-clip rules.

Another method you see in really heavy-duty applications is to use a hub, like a front wheel has, except that the "hub" part is hollow and splined inside, and has the bearings around the outside of it, instead of the hub having the bearings inside it and fitting over a shaft the way front wheels are; then the axle is just a shaft with splines at both ends, such that one end plugs into the carrier and one end plugs into the hub. You use a cover plate, a "hub cap", to hold it in. That's how they do it in NASCAR for example; they build a 9" up like that. A Dana 60 is also made that way in some applications, and lots of large truck axles (like dump trucks and such) use floaters too. In a NASCAR 9" all you have to do to change gears, is undo about 6 little screws that hold the "hub cap" on; slide the axle out; unblot the 14 (I think it is) bolts that hold the center section, which has the gears mounted to it, to the housing; bolt in a new pre-prepped and set up center section; slip the axles back in, and off you go. Takes about 10 minutes.

I don't get this business about having to convert to C-clips to "work" though. Obviously I'm an idiot. Enlighten me as to why you want them, even though the design of a 9" doesn't use them.

 

An advantage of the 9 inch would be NO c-clips. The fact that you want to add them makes me think you should not attempt this. If it was as easy as you want it to be(take an old 9 inch ford, mod it a bit, then pop it in a third gen), lots of people would have already done it--and we would probably have a tech article covering how to do it. What you will end up with is an axle that is probably not the correct width, wrong bolt pattern, won't accept your brakes, and will need spring pearches, control arm mounts, and a torque arm mount fabbed up in all the exact correct places. If you have the ability, then go for it--but if you want to convert to c-clips then don't even attempt it.

 

For the money you can't beat Moser's f-body package,which comes with 800hp rated axles,big axle tubes and everything
in the right place.Besides looking at the monster cast torque arm bracket,theres no way I would attempt to make it.All you need is your own centre section.Fabbing your own stuff is great for a lot of things but I don't think this is one of them.

 

you can buy complete ford 8.8" rearends that you wont break anytime in the near future for like $1600 complete

cant do much better than that, if i didn't buy my dana 44 complete for $1000, i would've done that

do a search on www.ls1tech.com for 8.8 and you should find out who is selling it