I picked up a 9 bolt with 3.27's from thirdgen ranch. It was out of an 87 iroc. I have never a really taken a rear out before. I have had pretty much everything loosend up back there with replacing parts like the adjustable pan hard bar and tubular control arms new shocks. What I was wondering is it that much of a pita to actually pull the rear? Will I need to compress the springs? What should I need to know before swapping out the drum for the disc brake set up?

 

Depends on what you consider a PITA... some people think adjusting the idle screw is too much to tackle, others don't mind fabricating a back-half in their garage. Most of us are somewhere in between. On my personal 1 - 10 scale, it's about a 2.5 in difficulty, a 4 in unpleasantness (dirty and I have to lay on the ground), and about a 2 in time spent (takes me around an hour and a half, drive-in to drive-out).

Yes. In fact it's unavoidable. When they fall out as part of the process, and you set them back up in there by hand, you will then have to jack the rear back up until it reaches the shocks; at that point, the springs will be slightly compressed.

I STRONGLY suggest that if you do this, you set the old springs aside at that point, and lift new ones instead.

That the brakes on that rear are total crap, arguably THE WORST rear disc setup in existence; that your drums probably work better than they do; but if you replace the calipers, install the "recall kit" in them, get the right proportioning valve for them (your existing one will prevent them from ever working right), and modify the valve per the instructions that have been posted elsewhere on this site, and then use the parking brake EVERY SINGLE TIME you step out of the car and twice on Sundays just for good measure, they might be partly satisfactory some of the time.

 

Im doing the same swap as we speak. 10 bolt to 9 bolt... I just pulled the rear end out last night. The thing practically fell out for me. Took no time. Springs are nothing to worry about, just put the jack under the rear and after removing the shocks and control arms, pull back and drop it out. No sweat.

 

I got the master cylinder and proportioning valve also the e brake cable with the 9 bolt. Will I have to use any of that? Master cylinder and proportioning valve looks the same as what's already on my car. I dunno if there's a difference in them or not.

 

MC is the same AFAIK; PV is different.

 

It is not too hard but there are some fun gotchas that you can run into. My favorite is forgetting to check the threads where you bolt on the drive shaft and finding them messed up after you get the rear under the car. I would suggest running a bolt and maybe a tap through them before you slide the rear under.