A friend of mine picked up this quick change rear end for me last night and brought it by the house. It has the floating hubs with steel axle tubes and some super huge brakes with a 5 inch (not wide 5) bolt pattern. What do I have to do to run it in a hot rod? I am assuming that I have to change the axle tubes with some with regular Bearing ends and maybe some ford 9 inch brakes. Anyone ever convert one over?? Question 2, this is an Old Frankland rear end. It came with 2 rear covers. What is the difference in the castings is one older than the other? Just wondering.....
The calipers brackets look like it's for the chevy calipers, Very common for oval racers. The calipers don't cost much and pads are a dime a dozen. if the bearings show wear just replace them any racer supply will have the bearings. The hubs look to be 5 on 5 again a very common patteren (NA$CAR patteren). The only thing I see on the covers is one has a 90° elbow installed in the fill plug hole, these were normally connected to a rubber hose and extended up higher to be used as a vent/filler port. If you run it on the street be prepared for a whine from the QC gears.
Parts are easy through speedway motors or stockcarproducts.com but pricey. A loaded ring&pinion will run you about $400. Usually they have spools in them, so the problem will be finding an open diff or if you want longevity on the street, a limited slip of some sort not made out of aluminum. The limited slip in my racecar retails for over 1000, ouch. The whole Q/C (early ones at least) are based on 2-piece ford 3/4 ton rears, so it may be possible to source a diff from there. I've never had one to be sure if it fits. Get the winters book, I think speedway sells it. Warning, these suckers are heavy. You carry a lot of weight just for gear whine and being able to change ratios.
I have a Winters QC that I just built... Speedway Engineering (not Speedway Motors) and Winters both sell axle tubes with 9" ends. I bought mine from Winters. You need to determine the width you want and order the tubes accordingly... (Make sure you KNOW what you need - I talked to a couple tech's and got numbers that didn't match mine before I finally spoke to Mr. Winters himself and found out that I was right. Otherwise very nice to deal with.) I built mine to use 76/77 Ford Bronco axles, 31 spline, both longer side (left I think?) and then ordered two left axles from Jeff's Bronco Graveyard, along with backing plates. Then bought '77 Bronco brakes at the local parts store... easy to replace - no guessing. I had a local race shop swap the tubes out for me, because it's a pain and worth the money (to me at least). I rebuilt the R&P, Winters Locker, etc... myself. Wasn't too bad. Turned out pretty nice, I like the noise- although it is kind of loud I guess... Winters Performance website has LOTS of information. Let me know if you need anything else. Kamp
It came with a ring and pinion and a locker so I won't have to shell out the cabbage for that. I am sure that after I go to the trouble to get this together and working I will put it in something that will show it off. Kind of like two white trash guys I saw at a local bar one night that had holes strategically cut in their T-shirts so that you could see their random tattoos. I have a guy locally that can respline and shorten axles so I am not too worrried about that either. I guess when the time comes I will contact Winters and get all the goodies I need. I was kind of looking for info on the difference in the covers. One says Frankland Racing and the other just says Frankland. I was wondering oif one was older or whatnot...... Thanks for the help!
The covers mean very little. There are hundreds of diffrent Frankland style covers floating around and they all interchange. Look behind the Merc and you can see a few of mine. (I have a bit of a sickness for quickie covers..) The good news is, you already have a differential. That's the hard part. Most of those rears come with a spool. Also, teh 5 on 5 is OK too. If you need to narrow it, you can buy whatever length axles you need for less than 100 bucks each. And, you can narrow teh axle tubes yourself. Nuttin to it. You actually did very well...most of those rears come with a spool and big ass wide 5s. You are already ahead of the game. (as long as you have some cool 5 on 5 wheels laying around...) I learned lots of stuff about quickies doing mine, so gimme a holler if you need any help. My quickie has done 4 years of daily driving and 4 HAMB Drags trips with out a hiccup. Good luck, -Abone.
Cool, thanks! I will probably change the outer tubes anyway just to get rid of the huge ugly disc brakes on it. Whatever I put it on will have the rear showing and I don't really want to show those off. If they were smaller I wouldn't mind. For now it will just go into the "Hoard" until I finish the junk I am working on now. I have been amassing a collection of cool shit that I need to put together on something.....
I have the same Frankland "quickie" in my '64 Galaxie. I left the full floating hubs on it because my car has the Nascar look to it. I converted mine to drums using Ford truck drums and some Frankland backing plates I found on Ebay. If you want to convert to conventional axles, simply cut off the snout holding the hubs on, and big bearing Ford axle ends can be welded on. The spline in the locker is the same 31 spline that Ford uses, so you can either buy some new axles or have some used ones shortened and re-splined. Mine has the big "Super Cover" that holds a little more oil and looks cool. The ring & pinions are usually in good shape on all the quickies I have had. Spur gears are usually less than $20.00 on the 'Bay for a used set, and I have tried most of the ratios.
I need help finding quiet 10 spine QC change gears for my 10 " Winters QC. they don't sell helical gears in the ratio I need. #29- 15/24 or # 39-- 18/29. Thanks Ago
Plowboy... I've been looking for an older cover for mine since I got that super cooler on mine. From what I've gathered there's no difference other than casting age, most likely. If you'd like to get rid of one, PM me, I'd love to replace mine. Brent
Drive em, Not all QC's have 31 spline carriers. Many older ones (especially Frankland) have 10 splines on the carrier. Better check before you order axles. CT Brent, Let me know if you get in a pinch for a vintage Frankland QC cover, I might have an extra.
From the look of those ends, you either have Grand National (Howe, AFCO, Coleman, etc) or Vogel snouts. The Vogel ends are not as common as the Grand Nationals though. I'd guess you have GN snouts and from the look of the tubes, they are set-up to run GM big car calipers (hell, the calipers are tied to the tubes in that one pic). They're good brakes, quite a lot more rigid than the later GM metric calipers, if a bit heavier. The rotors appear to be the larger 1.25" thick units, which could be replaced with the thinner (0.82" thick) kind if you dislike the look. Winters makes tubes with standard Ford 9" ends if you want to run standard backing plates and drums, but that would be a HUGE step backwards IMO. One of the big reasons to run a QC rear IMO is so you can have full floating axles. No more lost wheels when ye olde axle snaps (which will happen eventually if you're running a full tight locker on the street, especially if you're using shortened and resplined or used race axles). That rear also appears to have coil over perches installed already, if you're into that sort of thing. The wheel bolt pattern should be 5 on 5", unless it has special order hubs on it.
Upon further inspection, the carrier on mine doesn't have the 31 spline in it it is bigger and square splined, most likely the 10 or 12 mentioned. Is that a big deal getting the ford axles to fit it or am I better off getting different side gears for it with the 31 spline in them??? My buddy can do the ford spline but I would imagine that I would have to have custom splined ford axles made for it.......
Why not just adapt brake drums to the floater hubs? If you want a different 5 bolt pattern, have the hubs drilled and move the studs to the new holes. Troyer Engineering makes a weld on bracket that will accept the early Ford backing plates. http://www.troyerracecars.com/
........Because I find the big floating hub very unattractive and the particular wheel choice I was planning wouldn't look very good with a big 3/4 ton looking hub sticking out through it. I am one of those fools who would rather have it look good than function better. Ha Ha Ha
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