Content Wrapper

[ZPD]

Hey guys, I don't post here very often but I do a lot of lurking. I thought that I would post up the results of my Ford 8.8 swap into my 67 coupe.
I have owned my car for a few years and the rearend always had a whine to it. I have built axles before for other vehicles and so I pulled the third out of my 8" and discovered that the front pinion support was broken. Rather than buying a new third and gears I decided to find and axle out of a 96+ exlporer.
The 96 and newer Exploders had disc brakes which is nice and are fairly close to the same width as my 8". They are also common swaps that people do in Jeep YJ's and XJ's. I found an axle out of a '99 Exploder with 40k on it for $250.
I cut the old perches off and welded some new ones that I had from a previous axle project. I also welded on some nuts to hold on the brake lines because the original exlporer spring perches were used as a mount for the brakelines.



There are a few problems with the 8.8. The pinion is off center and it uses a unique flange on it. To deal with the flange, I took it off and ordered a yoke for a 1310 u-joint (1 1/16" caps) from Inland Empire Driveline




When I mocked it up I found that a flange on the housing would hit my exhaust due to the pinion being off center.


So off it came via my sawzall and grinder



I painted the axle, bought a brakeline adapter, some new u-bolts and bolted it up. I also used the Explorer u-bolt plates (left plate on the right side and right plate on the left side)and bought some adjustable shocks off of ebay for a newer mustang. This part was a bit of a gamble but it paid off. I needed a shock with a stud on the top and an EB1 eye on the bottom. After a little bit of persuasion with the hammer I was able to adjust the position of the lower shock mounts in a good place.





After all that I gave it another coat or two of paint and put it in. Well it all works well but there are a few problems. I was afraid that the offset pinion would cause some issues. There are not any noticable driveline vibes up to 90 mph (I haven't taken it over that due to steering issues) but the yoke hits the tunnel when I hit a bump. I would imagine that if I had left that flange on then it would have been worse. This may be caused by the 4.5 mid-eye leaf springs I installed which made the whole car a bit lower than I expected. I also need to redo the bumpstops because right now they do not hit anything. Ultimately I think that I will try to find a long axle shaft (one side is shorter than the other) and lengthen one side of the axle and redo the perches. This should center it a bit better.