I have a 1979 cutlass salon 442 that has bad rear end gears. There is no acceleration at all. I just dropped a healthy 305 in it but i need to find gears. I found a complete axle and everything rear end out of a 87 monte carlo. I was wondering if this would directly bolt up or if it wouldn't work at all. Thanks for the advice and answers.
79 cutlass salon 442 help
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Direct bolt-in! You may have to get new lug nuts though. I believe they went from SAE to metric in 1981. Aside from that it's a direct fit. What is the before and after ratios?
i think the ratio in it is around a 2.29 or so. The 305 probably has 400 hp but the gears are terrible. The rear end that i'm looking at has 3.42 posi's in it. It will be my first car when it gets done. Here is a vid of it when we first got it running
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrtW29ECf60
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrtW29ECf60
If the 305 has 400HP, then that is 1 EXTREMELY healthy 305. Also, if the '87 Monte Carlo axle has a 3 series gear in it, then its probably from a Monte SS, and it should have 3.73 gears in it, not 3.42. GM only used the 3.42 gears in the Monte SS in '83 and '84. Do you have any other photos of the car, or possibly a longer video? You don't see very many of the 442s from that time.
it aint hard to check it... just remove the differential cover, look, get some gasket maker..you can drain the oil into a pan.. get you a bottle of gear oil and squeeze it back in when youre done
If the car has a 2.29 gear in it now, then any 3 series rear gear is going to make a definite improvement in acceleration, so whether its 3.42 or 3.73 really isn't going to matter a whole lot. The only thing that you may want to consider if you install that axle would be an overdrive transmission. Otherwise, the car will RPM very high at highway speeds, and your gas mileage will go down.
Count how many turns it takes for the yoke to make one revolution of the axel.79cutlasssalon442 said:
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