I found a guy selling a ford 9" that is setup for I believe a 2nd gen camaro w/ leaf springs. What all would I have to do besides some fabrication to make it setup for coil spring? He wants $100 for it. Sound worth it?

 

Make sure it's the same width

Cut all the brackets off a third gen diff and weld them onto the 9" tubes. Check all the angles and measurements before cutting and before welding.

Buy/fabricate/design/weld some sort of mount onto the housing to attach the torque arm.

Not sure what you'll need to do about park brake cables or brake lines. Third gen brakes lines will be metric fittings.

Swapping everything over all the brackets and stuff isn't hard. The hard part is getting the torque arm mounted. If it was a simple swap, more people would do it. Installing a 9" into a leak spring car is an afternoon job.

$100 might be a good deal but if you end up spending $500 more trying to convert it, the deal doesn't become as good. You can get a direct bolt in housing with axles for about $1000. Just add in you own center section and brakes.

My 9" is out of a 1970 F100. That was only for the width. Everything else is aftermarket. To eliminate the torque arm, I use ladder bars but my car is strip only and sees no street use.

 

if the thing is complete drum to drum and you don't jump on it, then shame on you. if you can fab at all, this would be a great opporutnity! it'll cost you nearly $3000 to do up one complete with center section and brakes if you get a bolt-in unit from Moser, DTS, or Strange. if it's less the center chunk, it still may be worth it if you like to fab.

 

fabrication isn't the problem, i do it for a living. i know what it'll cost to do a bolt in. i was just wondering if it was worth the time and effort to convert. I don't care about width, i can make it longer or shorter, i have entire fab. shop at my disposal. i'm saying this......ford 9" for 100 bux, i'm seriously thinking of buying it. i'd go today, but it's a friend of a friend deal and my friend left this morning for atco.

 

It's not like it's a rare item. I can go to the junkyard and pull a leaf spring 9" out of any Ford pickup truck if I didn't care about the width. Other than the time it would take me, a complete diff won't cost me $100.

There's more to the diff than just being a 9". Is it 28 or 31 spline axles. What gears are in the diff. Not many factory diffs have anything better than 3.50. Chances are it's an open diff so you'll need to upgrade to a posi (GM term). Ford offered a bunch of different axle bearings. Personally I like the "big bearing" style. Easiest to identify because the backing plates are held on with 1/2" bolts instead of 3/8" bolts. Ford diffs have a truck bolt pattern axles so they either need to be replaced or redrilled. Finding a 9" in a car will have the Ford 5 on 4.5" bolt pattern when GM cars use 5 on 4.75" bolt pattern. In my 9", I use Ford 11 x 2-1/4" drum brakes. Far better than the tiny GM drum brakes. All the brake parts are easy to find although I don't know exactly what vehicle the drums are for. I just went to the auto parts store and compared all the Ford drums for that size brake until I found a small, lightweight drum. My rims are dual bolt pattern so I use the Ford bolt pattern.

A $100 deal might not be much of a deal if everything in the diff isn't what you want of need. Just don't jump at it without knowing exactly what your getting into. You can go to a junkyard and mix and match parts to get a 9" diff with what you need for the same or less money.

 

i wasn't planning on leaving it as i purchased it, never can. if it had 3.50's in it i'd be satified with that. i have 3.42's now and i love em, and 3.50's isn't far off. as for the axles, i was already planning on getting new ones, 31 or 33 spline w/ an auburn posi unit. i was also planning on a disc brake conversion. so like i said before, i'm not concerned about too much. basically is it worth my time. i have a '91 drum rear, didn't check the gear ratio yet. i was planning on working it up until i found this deal. i just got the '91 rear and haven't touched it yet. i also haven't had the oppurtunity to see the 9 inch yet so i can't tell anything other than it's a 9 inch. the guy that has it has to many toys and parts lying around so he's selling all kinds of stuff to get it out of his way. he's that determined to get rid of stuff that he sold my friend a set of centerline's for $25! thanks for all the info so far.