Conversion to positraction

[snipescastle2]

I bought a 12 bolt Posi traction rear end out of a 1964 C10. Before you start scouring the bone yards looking for one of these rear ends, let me fill you in on the specifics of this particular rear end:

This rear end was made by "Dana" for GM, it's pretty rare to start with, the only other car known to use this posi traction carrier was the '64 corvette, and it uses 17 spline axles. besides the fact that I had to get the axle flange stud holes plug welded, and the flanges re-drilled for a 5" x 5" bolt pattern, these axles are known to be weak. Most people will tell you to go the route of installing an Eaton Posi carrier, mostly because the parts are very plentiful.
Once I started calling around looking for rebuild parts for this rear end, most shops, Including Randy's ring and Pinion all told me the same thing, no parts exist to rebuild these. I beg to differ though. As I mentioned, the '64 Corvette shared this particular posi carrier, and you can buy the clutch packs for these through Corvette restoration companies, albeit expensive though. that being said, I decided to replace all the bearings and seals and set this unit up stock, since I have no intention of doing drag strip launches (with the exception of a few burnouts here and there ) This unit should last a long time.
I can tell you this though, even though I didn't rebuild the carrier, this thing is tight......
When I brought the chassis home with the cab mounted on it, I attempted to back it into the driveway, the whole ass end kept sliding sideways, as if no spider gears, wouldn't give an inch, had to put a jack under the rear in order to turn it enough to get it in the driveway!
Here are a few pictures of the unit before I rebuilt it... and after. Notice the absence of the panhard bar attaching stud.....I had to cut the ugly bracket off the axle tube, which was there for the '64 C10 bar, and since I was lowering the truck, I just made my own track bar out of steel tubing and rod end bearings that are L/H and R/H thread, like a turn buckle, so they can be adjusted, and welded a bracket to the lower right hand trailering arm to attach the bar to, and I retained the factory upper bar mount, and last but not least, the rear end bolted in just like the factory original did, same track width, same trailing arm mounts.
Ben