9 inch rear with stock disc brakes...???

[troy54gmc]

Allright ive been racking my brain the last couple of days. Im putting a f--d 9 inch rearend in my 54 gmc but it didnt come with brakes when i bought it. its out of a 80s truck and is 65"s wide. I want to put discs brake on it but all the after market kits are really expensive. So i did some research and found out the 77-80 lincoln versaliess came with a 9 inch rearend with disc brakes stock from the factory, as did the granada and monarch. so i went to the junk yard yesterday and found 2 stock 9 inch axles with factory disc brakes 62" wide mounting plate to mounting plate on the 79 lincoln versaliess. they want $250 buck for one of these. I have read these axles came with really poor gears for hp more for car cruising. Has anyone done this swap and if so what problems did you have??? Or should i just save and buy a kit for the one i got? any feedback would be greatly appreciated...

[rawraw67]

I did the swap.got the hole rearend for $125 73 ford lincoln 9" not versaliess but the mark 4. I put it my 70 chevy truck

[troy54gmc]

Hey Raw67 did the 73 lincoln mark 4 come with factory disc brakes? and did you keep the same gears in it or upgrade?

[Tri5Nerd]

Originally Posted by troy54gmc

Hey Raw67 did the 73 lincoln mark 4 come with factory disc brakes? and did you keep the same gears in it or upgrade?

Yes, they do, I got mine from a mark 4. it has disc brakes. If you can find one it's will be 62" wide.

Raw, How did you do the emergency brake setup?


Tri5

[rawraw67]

Tri5Nerd I have not got the e-brake hook up yet,I have two short left side cables and will try to hook them up, when I fab up some kind of bracket I will just hook it to the front cable.How about you? what did have you come up with ?

[Tri5Nerd]

Originally Posted by rawraw67

Tri5Nerd I have not got the e-brake hook up yet,I have two short left side cables and will try to hook them up, when I fab up some kind of bracket I will just hook it to the front cable.How about you? what did have you come up with ?

I got some cables from a bronco II and will try to adapt them when I get to that point.
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[michaelnolimit]

90's ford Explorer has disc brakes and an internal drum style e-brake. Very nice setup. The versi stuff works pretty good but I don't like the way you have to adjust the e brake. To adjust the e brake you cruise at 20-30 miles an hour In Reverse and pull the e-brake several times. The caliper has this weird ratchet mechanism inside that requires this In reverse style of adjustment. Ive had luck with the versi rears but have had quite a few headaches as well. I now use the ford explorer stuff.

[troy54gmc]

Hey Mike. its weird that you mention this cause i just went to the junkyard last week and purchased a 95 ford explorer rearend. I researched and found out that the 95-01 explorers came with 8.8 rearends with disc brakes. I picked mine up for just over $100 bucks and its a 8.8 with disc brakes 3.73 gears with locker and 31 spline axles and sway bar. it also came with a really cool 2 into one e-brake cable system that should be easy to hook up to a factory e-brake. the only thing i dont like about it is the c-clips that hold the axles in the housing. ive heard this is the weak link and if they brake you lose the axle and wheel. i was reading something about a way to weld these some how to solve this problem??? does anyone know about this???

[michaelnolimit]

Thats a pretty good deal on the housing. I also like the 8.8 inch housing because it weighs less than the 9 inch. Less unsprung weight the suspension has to control. As far as the axle retainers Ive never seen one let go. Not saying it hasnt but its pretty rare. You would have to have some serious horespower issues to snap the four bolts that hold the retaining plate to the housing. I feel better about this setup than your average 10 or 12 bolt gm. They have little c clips that slide in to a groove on the end of the axle. They dont even bolt in. We built a truck about 6-7 years ago called the Princess and it has the ford explorer style brakes with the axle retaining plates. The truck has over 1200 horespower. The customer still drives it today and has never experienced any problems keeping the axles in place. You could get a thicker retainer plate, but I wouldnt waste my time if your under 1,000 horespower.

[troy54gmc]

Hey Mike im not sure if were talkin about the same axle. the one i got came out of a 1995 ford explorer. it only has these 2 small c-clips that go on the end of each axle once they are installed into the 3rd member. those and the brake caliper are the only thing that holds the axles in. the old nine inch i had had a retaning plate that was held in with 4 bolts like you were saying. the new one has 4 bolts also but they only hold the brake caliper braket and the e-brake mount. ill put a couple of pictures to try to explain.

[crakarjax]

Originally Posted by troy54gmc

Hey Mike. its weird that you mention this cause i just went to the junkyard last week and purchased a 95 ford explorer rearend. I researched and found out that the 95-01 explorers came with 8.8 rearends with disc brakes.

Troy, where did you find that info? I can't really find a compiled source of rearend specs anywhere. Do you know how wide that 95-01 explorer rear is flange to flange? My '97 Grand Marquis has the same disc brake setup with the internal drum e-brake, I'll take a tape measure to is to see how it stacks up. How can I identify what ring size and spline count it has without opening it up?

... I did some digging and it looks like the crown vic/grand marquis does have an 8.8 but a low gear ratio and probably not limited slip.

[crakarjax]

I found a good writeup on the 8.8 being retrofitted to a TJ, including some fabbed e-brake brackets:
http://www.nwjeepn.com/Axleswap.html


Door codes:

41 Open 3.27
42 Open 4.10
43 Open 3.08
45 Open 3.55
46 Open 3.73
D4 Limited Slip 3200 3.73
D2 Limited Slip 4.10
L73 Limited Slip 3.73

Axle tag codes:

3L73 = 3.73 LS
4 10 = 4.10 open
4L10 = 4.10 LS

Ford 8.8 specs:

Weight complete: 174 lb.
Axle shaft strength: 6,500 (lb. ft.)
Bolt size (U-joint flange to yoke) 12 x 1.75 x 30 mm

Measurements:

O.D. of tubes: 3.250"
Tube thickness: .250"
Ring gear diameter: 8.800"
Ring gear bolts: 7/16" dia. (qty. 10)
Pinion diameter/splines: 1.625 / 30
Axle shaft diameter/splines: 1.320 / 31
Overall width 59.625"
Hole diameter for ABS sensor in top of housing: .811"
Centerline of housing to C/L of pinion difference is 3.875" toward the P/S.

[Mike Bradbury]

I did the Mark V swap into my '69 C10 about a year ago. It is not cheap but is is a very good axle. Brake parts are on the expensive side, not so much the pads but the calipers and rotors. The rotors have a directional fin in the vent ports. Most cars I guess do not have this so it makes them kind of rare. If you need to replace the calipers then save the old ones for the core they are worth around $70 at nappa.

The Mark axles are wider than the Versailles, and have coil spring perches vs the Versailles leaf perches, they also fit the wider 60's style trucks better. Not sure how wide your '54 is but I had to run a bit of a spacer to get the wheels out to the edge of the wheel wells.

I ended up fabricating an E-brake bracket that works very well. I did not like the '77 version of the e-brake bracket on the caliper that hangs below the rotor. I searched in the junk yards and found a late 80's early 90's Mark that had reversed brackets that pull up rather than down. Also out of that same late 80's/90's Lincoln I used the e-brake cables ends that connected right up to my old C10 cables.





Here are some brackets that I fabricated so that the e-brake arm pulls up not down. You can see them mounted on the calipers in the first picture on top of the caliper.

[7T2]

Do you have to modify your driveshaft at all to use the Lincoln rear ends?

[Mike Bradbury]

I have a two piece shaft and I did not have to modify, not sure about the one piece shafts. But you do need a yoke on the third member that adapts from Ford to Chevy U joints.

[Mike Bradbury]

I did buy the trailing arm brackets from ECE that are supposed to weld right up to an axle. Unfortunately the Lincoln 9 has a bit of a conical shaped housing and care needs to be taken in welding them to the 9" housing to get the correct angle, some grinding is necessary to align them. Mine got a bit off and I did not realize this until it was too late. My custom brackets were wide enough to accommodate a bit of a skewed angle but I will know for next time.