Here is what I have. My car was built in the late seventies, shag carpet, really wide rear tires and so on. I have changed everything except the rearend. It now has a '70 Chevelle rearend with homemade trailing arm brackets and some really bad spring buckets. I am going to purchase a leaf spring kit from CE, but what I need to know is, is there a rearend that is the correct width that I can score at the junkyard? If not, what are my options? What is the correct width measurment?Thanks!
I use the '57 Ford 9 inch rears ends. I have used late 70's Nova 10 bolts, 8 inch Granada's and a Lincoln Versailles. Check the Chassis Engineering Catalog there might be other that are suitable with very little work involved.
The rearends that TCI use in their 35-40 chassis is 56.5" wide. They use Currie 9" housings. Currie also sells 8" housings in that width. The Ford 8" that matches that width is the 70's Maverick. My TCI chassis for the 36 has an 8" Currie housing in it.
Any width from 56.5" to 58" will work well. Besides the ones mentioned by others, the '65-66 Mustang fits into that range.
My records indicate that the original '39 rearend was 59 1/4" from wheel mounting surface to opposite WMS. My other records show 1967-1970 Mustang, Cougar, Comet, and Fairlane to be the same. '77-'81 Granada and Versailles are 58-58.5". '78-'88 Malibu and Monte Carlo are '58".
I used a 2001 Explorer rear under mine. Most come with 3:73 gears, positraction and disc brakes. Worked out fine for me.
The Jalopy Journal
