8.5 axle tubes?

[ham1974]

I was looking at posts about 8.5 and had a couple of thoughts. Some had asked this in another tread and it was not answered. Are the tubes on a 7.5 rear the same as 8.5? What about other than grand/442 rears? If so they couldn’t they be swapped?

 

[bracketchev1221]

Why would you want to do that? The tubes are pressed in to the center section and plug welded.

 

[ham1974]

Why would you want to do that? The tubes are pressed in to the center section and plug welded.

You would have the mounts already set up.

 

[bracketchev1221]

What about the ones cast into the center section? I have seen people make heavy brackets to try to adapt them, but otherwise they are cast into the gear case.

 

[pontiacgp]

Both tubes use the same axle bearing but the 8.5" axle tube flares to a larger diameter.

this is a 7.5" axle tube

this is an 8.5" axle tube

 

[81cutlass]

Yeah they are larger.

I still have my design for the bolt on plate to put a leaf spring 8.5/8.6 rear into a G body. It sandwiches between the dif and the cover and keeps stock geometry.

Lower control arm brackets are only $60 on speedway motors.

Ford 8.8 people narrow their rears all the time, the buy two explorer rears, remove the long axle tube and weld another short one in is pretty common.

There is a guy out there that showed cutting the axle tubes off of a 4th gen F body 10 bolt 7.5 and sleeving a ford 8.8, and welding the hiltsy mount https://www.ebay.com/i/292513681342?chn=ps to the 8.8 diff, then getting some random axle out of a ranger or van or something to make it work. That allowed him to run stock brake parts and he just had to redrill his rotors.