I have a rear axle housing, totally bare except for the plates that bolt in on the end of each side. One of the plates has the groove facing forward, the other plate has the groove facing backwards, and the bolt pattern on each is a trapezoid so I can't spin one around. Will that lead to goofy braking? I know it will look funny if I ever get more "open" wheels. Can/should this be fixed?

The guy I got it from said it came from an 87ish Camaro. It had a broken non-posi unit in it. I was gonna put a posi unit in there (I can do that, right?). If that lil bit of information is helpful, there ya go

 

Scrap those backing plates. Then install the 1990-1992 type backing plates.