My 9" Detroit Locker Order Revisited

I just pulled out an axle and to my disappointment the 28 spline axle bearing measures smaller than 3 inches diameter. Carl at Randy's Ring & Pinion was right when he said I'll probably need to weld in new ends that will allow for the bigger 3.150" bearings that the 35 spline axles have. I found this website to be very informative if any of you guys are planning to do the same.

http://www.moserengineering.com

        

Edited by GranTorinoMan

I've made arrangements with my mechanic to cut the ends of my rear axle housing next week and weld in the bigger bearing ends, however it looks like I'm going to have to pull the whole thing out to do so. This would be a good time to order my Lower Control Arms and some poly bushings.    

That would save you the the trouble I'll be going through this week dropping out the rear axle and changing my housing ends. My total bill for the Aluminum Carrier, 35 spline Detroit Locker, 4.30 gears & Daytona pinion support, $1,399.00 US including assembly parts & labour. The larger bearing housing ends are $82.33 US for the pair. Total bill so far $1,481.33 

  

That is one gorgeous pile of money there.  What made you choose the AL carrier versus the steel?

 

LOL, well FWIW, that's about what I was looking at paying for an assembled steel carrier from Strange, so you did great on the price.  Did they give you a TQ/HP/Weight limit on that unit? 

 

Jim

I'll ask Carl at Randy's R & P and post the specs. I really lucked out on the mechanic that's going to do the work on my car. He says he's going to narrow my rear housing tube ends inwards as far as possible to allow for more wheel space so I can go to wider tires. He's going to build me a custom set of lower control arms with mounts that have at least 4 bolt hole positions for adjustments to get the best launch. He said that his design will also improve the handling of my car, especially if I wanted to run the car on a road course. Music to my ears, and I can do all this in steps as I can afford it. I'll keep you guys posted!  

Edited by GranTorinoMan

the 2001+ Lightnings have Aluminum driveshafts..

:-)

(Strange also reports that Pro-Mod cars are using their HD Aluminum carrier, so 1800+hp and 2500 lbs)

I'd use an Aluminum one if it was a factory piece or cut and redone by someone who knows what they are doing.  Otherwise good old steel does feel safer..  (even if the one in my car feels like it could double as a cannon barrel)

 

:-)

Jim

If the aluminum is thick enough and well designed it will hold just fine. It is not as strong as steel, but even if you made the housing three times thicker with more strength ribs, it'd be as strong. But again the question it - did they design it correctly... It certianly will be much lighter though, as already mentioned. One advantage of steel and cast iron however - those materials absorb vibrations much better.

Paul, I ran a stock small block 3" driveshaft in my car for years behind the 466, down almost into the 12's, it did have a bit of a vibratio0n when spun over 5800rpm.  Now it's a 3.5", thick wall, 1350 Ujoint, billet yoked monster propelling me and my physics experiment..

Certainly there will always be a fuse, trans? driveshaft? center section? axles? studs? tires?  All depends on how it's used.  on street tires, almost anything in decent repair will do..  It's race tires that start the parts breakage usually

Jim

Installing my new Detroit Locker and axles has opened a can of worms for having to change things on my 72 Torino. The 35 spline axles needed bigger bearing ends for the axle housing so my mechanic cut off the old small bearing ends and welded into place the bigger ones. He was also able to shorten the axle housing ends by 3/8" on both sides to give me more room for tire width which required some machining of the stock 10" brake mounting plate and control arm axle mounts. On the first road test the Detroit Locker really showed the sloppy play in the stock rubber suspension bushings, so I've ordered in a full Polygraphite bushing set for the stock rear upper and lower control arms and my mechanic plans to weld in an adjustable bracket for the factory rear lower control arm plus he's going to weld in bottom plates to strengthen them. Being able to adjust the factory rear lower control arm should help my launch considerably. We ran the car on the hoist to do the initial ring & pinion break-in and my mechanic noticed that my factory driveshaft was bent slightly, so I'm looking at a new driveshaft, possibly aluminum tube.  I hope to test my car on Sept. 22 & 29 Friday night drags before the season ends, so I'll post my results.