Maybe the wrong place for this but. . .

ford nut

Well-known member
i'm trying to get my ford 8 inch rear ready to go under my 36 but problems keep coming up. I bought this rear end for 50.00. great price, but one of the axles was missing, then they found it and shipped it to me. that cost 100.00. still ok to me. it had no drums, but I had some NOS drums left over from a project that ended up getting discs, so I want to use them on this project, but the register hole is to small. should I enlarge the hole, or turn down the super big, heavy duty axle hub? why it so big? here's some pics.
 

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If I remember correctly when we put brakes on my roadster 8" rear end I had a similar situation. Again IRRC the 8" has a larger register hole than the 9" and the offset from hub to brake shoe is different, and there are different brake shoe diameters so you could have two drums of the same diameter for 8" and 9" that do not interchange. Check with a good parts store and have them pull parts to check.
 
Yogis May still have CE kits They didn't stop me if I were to buy.
AS-2016CG
1936-40 Ford Dual Leaf Rear Spring Kit $570
CE They are good kits.​
 
If you have rear end 57.25" You could have a 9" That rear has dimples
If its a 8" 57.25 Its a Mustang 1965 1966
59.25 is Mustang Fairlane Comet Cougar
 
A 9" bottom bolt can only be removed with a box end a socket will hit the pinion bearing support . A 8" all bolts can be removed with a socket .
 
I think Ford changed the axle flange size in '68.
Went from 2 3/8" to 2 3/4" from what I remember,
and the corresponding center hole in the wheels too.
















.
 
this is a 8 inch for sure. I have two others that have the smaller axle hub. it's 57-1/2 from axle flange to axle flange, measurement taken without drums. to me, this one seem earlier. the pumpkin is not the odd looking one with less ribs cast into it though, I think I have a pic of the 8 inch my 56 f100 I can put up. you can see the smaller register hub that my other two have, and the later style pumpkin that all three are.
 

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if it is out of a Maverick, there is one from a car with front disk brakes and one from a front drum brakes. the difference is one has the larger hole on the drums and larger register for the drum on the axle. drums for both can be purchased at NAPA parts. when i put an 8" under my 50 i had purchased an axle with the larger registers and so the 50 wheels (bolt pattern 5x4.5 is the same but the center register was too large for the regester of the 50 wheels) would not fit. i purchased 2 new drums with teh correct center holes and had a machine shop machine cut the center register to fit the drums and all was fine.
 
if it is out of a Maverick, there is one from a car with front disk brakes and one from a front drum brakes. the difference is one has the larger hole on the drums and larger register for the drum on the axle. drums for both can be purchased at NAPA parts. when i put an 8" under my 50 i had purchased an axle with the larger registers and so the 50 wheels (bolt pattern 5x4.5 is the same but the center register was too large for the regester of the 50 wheels) would not fit. i purchased 2 new drums with teh correct center holes and had a machine shop machine cut the center register to fit the drums and all was fine.
i'm not clear, you bought new drums that fit, AND had the axle turned down? wouldn't the new drums fixed the problem?
 
I THINK what he intended to say is that he bought new drums with the smaller register holes and had the axle registers cut down to fit the smaller hole in the drums.
(note the emphasis on "think")
 
The Maverick housing is 56 1/2 wide.
maybe mine's not a maverick. that why I just say 8 inch and the width. I wonder why ford felt the need to have the two sizes of register hubs. I read one article that showed axles just like mine and said they were 63 galaxy. that doesn't sound right to me.
 
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If you had 63 axles they would stick out 2" on each side.
Do you know if the axles fit the chuck and are you sure its a 8"
Put the axles in and measure see if 57.250
You may have 1957 to 1959 and that's a 9"
Lets see pic of chuck
 
40cpe is correct. had i used the axles and drums with the stock 50 wheels would not fit. as you show in your pictures the smaller hole of the brake drum would not clear the register of the axle. so i got the correct size drums and machined the axle. the 8" came in all kinds and years of different cars. the Maverick had the correct wheel spacing for my 50 passenger car. only after relocating the spring pads and a new ring and pinion did i find out about the difference with the axles and did not want to change the wheels to match the axles, so that was the simplest fix. when i did an 8" for a 53 car did i get the correct differential the first time.

when i did the T5 transmission on my 41 pick up i used the stock differential and just converted it to open drive with the transverse stock spring. if i had to do that over again i would use an 8" or 9" and use a Chassis Engineering parallel spring kit. would have made that swap much simpler....
 
8 inch! i'll sing it from the mountain! 8 inch! here's pics of thee axle project i'm work on.
 

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