9" Ford Discs ?s

[SRD art]

I want to narrow a 9" for my wagon. Eventually it'll have some decent ponies under hood and I like the idea of having two centers, one for track and one for street. If I'm going to go through the trouble to set up a 9" I'd just as well get as beefy as I can right now, so I'm on the hunt for a 31 spline set-up.

There's a Lincoln Continental from the 70s in the local wrecking yard that has a disc 9" in it. Research shows that although they have the bigger bearings they usually have 28 spline axles, the tubes get smaller as they go towards the brakes, and it has that goofy bolt on pinion yoke instead of a standard u-joint yoke. For those reasons I decided to not grab it and will be looking for a trac-loc 31 spline from a truck to narrow.

I'm wondering does anyone know if the disc brake brackets will bolt directly to the truck housing flanges? I can always go back and strip the brake parts while I look for a posi truck rear.

Thanks for any info!!!

[61ragtop]

I have one out of a Lincoln with discs. If you are narrowing it you will need new axles so you can get different splines and center section to match those axles.

[Apogee]

I'd probably avoid the car housings and brakes...too many variations and not the best brakes IMHO. If you don't mind narrowing it, the 1977+ F150, E150 and big-Bronco 9" axles were all 31-spline and somewhere between 65 and 68 inches wide. There are a few different housing ends in the period, but all will be the heavy-duty gusseted housings. You had two gear ratios that I know of, 3.50 and 4.10, many of which included the Trac-Loc limited slips. There is the 1977 Early Bronco Ford 9" which is 58" wide, but those are 28-spline and highly sought after by the small-bearing Bronco owners and the Mustang guys looking to ditch their Ford 8" axles, so they tend to command higher prices.

It really comes down to what brakes you intend to run as to what I might recommend. There are more options for the big-bearing Torino style housing ends (2.00 x 3.56 w/ 2.50 offset) than anything else, including the relatively inexpensive Ford Explorer rear discs, however there are kits for other housing ends as well. Since you would be narrowing the housing anyway, changing the housing ends may be your best bet, although could require new axles at the same time if you're changing offsets.

Tobin
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