Narrowing Rear Ends

[madman]

Are there any kits out for doing youre own narrowed rear ends? I wish to do a chrysler rear end with cutoff resplined axles and weld the housing ect, myself to save money. Is cutting resplining the existing axles a viable alternative. ? Thanx Mike

[topct]

http://www.moparts.com/Tech/Archive/race/16.html

http://www.mittlerbros.com/rearend_parts_acc.htm

[dicks42000]

Madman;
While I'm no expert on them, having only ever done 1, other car & racer guys are...(eg Torker, CCWKen etc...)
I used a drillpress & a gouger to cut out the plug welds on the differential housing & welded in new tubes. The actual axels I remember were aftermaket & I wouldn't attempt to machine new ones unless it was say a tractor or something that only I would use. (Liability issues...)
Car & truck axels are usually forgings and often the splined end is larger than the actual axel, so re-machining a spline would be hard. There are lots of off-road & racing after-market manufacturers out there who've already done what many of us might want to do. (Except maybe making race cars out of Skoda's...) Try some research....
HTH
Rick

[Nutter]

I've done Dana 60 and Ford 9" rear housings. I've got a jig with the bar and bushings, just like that article shows. It's not hard.

I've also shortened and resplined a pile of Dana 44 shafts. This is not difficult. All the calculations for the splines were in Machinerys Handbook.

I don't know what the profile on the Mopar splines, but if it's the same as a Dana axle or a Ford 9" you can buy spline cutters here http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=219732

Apparently he's just started making the 9" spline cutters.

[Nutter]

Madman;
While I'm no expert on them, having only ever done 1, other car & racer guys are...(eg Torker, CCWKen etc...)
I used a drillpress & a gouger to cut out the plug welds on the differential housing & welded in new tubes.

What are you saying here? Clearly you are talking about removing tubes from a cast center section. If you are saying they are blowing out the plug welds with an air/arc gouger, torch or plasma cutter - I believe that because that's what people generally do when they re-tube. I have never seen any type of dill bit that would touch the rossette weld in a Dana 60 though. I don't know how hard the welds are, but they kill Carbide in a hurry. If you've got some type of a new drill bit, end mill or other rotary cutting device that works, I'd like to learn about it. I've seen people use annular cutters and cut around the weld, but I think this is pretty hack. The last thing you want to do is remove material from the casting.

Sometimes I'll remove the tubes from a 9", cut them to length and slide them in further instead of welding new ends on. That's a lot easier that getting the welds out of a Dana casting though. Fabricated housings like the 9" are easier to work with.

The cleanest way I've seen of removing the rossette welds was a guy who built a small EDM machine using the book Lindsay sells. I believe he used 5/8" or 3/4" copper pipe for the electrode. It apparently takes a while, but it leaves nice clean holes without expanding the HAZ.

[dicks42000]

Nope, nothing special. Gouger & then shapened carbide (masonary) drill to clean up hole....Yes it chews up the drill, but the hole comes out cleaner & rounder. Masonary bits are cheap & expendable...

[torker]

Gouging the plug welds out is very easy with 3/16" (or smaller) rods. You can really keep the heat down with low amps...about 230 or a bit less. You want to get a little "pop" when it arcs out...not the "jet engine" sound. A little pop allows you to pick away at the weld with great control.
Pulling the tubes out of 9" rears....yer lucky to get one that isn't all rusted together. We did a couple once...ended up putting lots of heat on them then jerking them apart with a 966 Cat. One end chained to a big ass telephone pole the other end chained to the loader....do NOT try this at home :D (it can dent the back of your loader)
Russ

[Nutter]

I'll try that with the masonry bit. I've attacked the weld directly with a masonry bit it it did nothing. The next time I re-tube a front end I'll give it a shot with a masonry bit after I blow through the hole with my plasma cutter and see what happens.

[mochinist]

Nope, nothing special. Gouger & then shapened carbide (masonary) drill to clean up hole....Yes it chews up the drill, but the hole comes out cleaner & rounder. Masonary bits are cheap & expendable...Nothing to add, I just think it is funny that the software edits your name.

[bob308]

i made my own alinement bar and have done a few rears. never tried to retube any but do put 9" bearing ends on 12 bolt chevy rears that way the you do away with the c clips. also get danna 60 rears out of chevy 3/4 ton trucks and put the 9" ends on them. that way i get rid of the big floater ends.

i have also resplined a few axles it is no problem if they are big enough to trun and respline. in the old days i pulled a lot of 57-59 buick axles they were stright from the out side bearing to the spline. so they sort of just blanks where you could cut and spline where ever you needed them.

and why when we are all big boys and know the score does some one always have to cry liability. if we have to worry about it before doing anything then we mite as well scrap our machines and set on our hands.

[JRouche]

Are there any kits out for doing youre own narrowed rear ends? I wish to do a chrysler rear end with cutoff resplined axles and weld the housing ect,


Ahhh, the best bet is to just replace it with a Ford 9" of course.... ;)

Just kiddin....

Sort of. I dont know anything about cars or rear ends and things butt....

Is the center section cast iron? It seems like that would be a whole lot of unsprung weight, oh, but if yer just going straight then I guess handling does not really matter much....;);) Just kindin again. Cars? What? Cars? JRouche....Oh, my boy liked the movie (so did I)

[Dawai]

Most the people around here, just cut the axle tubes, wrap a pipe wrap around it, cut it square, then cut the section out to be shortened, weld it back up using a jig.

I have saw some dealies thou, I looked under a 49 ford, with my eye, I saw the frame clip was crooked, It was out of alignment over 1" with the rear section. Rear axle tube had been welded with a flux core mig and was ugly.. It was running 10's in the 1/8th.. I would not have drove it to the store.

If ya want a quickie narrow job? check axle length.. cut other side to match short axle, weld it in.. it centers the chunk, but offsets the driveshaft. No axle to respline, Just buy a short axle. like under the rear of a 23t? the center visual is more important than the driveshaft location.. it can accept some misalignment.. THE pinion incline angle is important thou.. point it down 1 1/2 to 2 degrees on a large V8 car. It will turn up with torque.

[Carld]

I know some women that need their rear ends narrowed:eek: :D but that's another story for a different thread.

A friend of my son does rear end narrowing as a side line. He has me making an alignment set to do the rear ends with. I made a set for another car builder friend of my son's a few years ago and he saw them and wants a set but just a little different. His way is the way I wanted to do the first set but the customer didn't want to spend the extra money. The better way is to bolt the outer locator rings to the flange to be welded to the cut off housing. That eliminates any miss alignment as long as the bar and rings are a close fit.

Ford 9" is King BTW.

[wierdscience]

Last few I did I used a plasma cutter and never looked back.If you want a pretty hole center-up and tack a washer over each hole for a guide.If the hole is a little rough,remember that's where a diegrinder comes in.Two slugs of steel and a 4ton porta-power pushes the tubes out with a little heat to the housing necks.

Ford 9"ers are the easiest to shorten,c-clip rears I hate and refuse to do.Most of my plug cutting comes in on 4x front ends where the tubes need to be clocked or narrowed as in the case of sticking a 44 under a Jeep.I don't see many rears for street rods anymore thou since they can be sourced already narrowed fairly reasonable and it doesn't involve raidng the junkyard.

[Fueler]

Here are a couple of other places for tooling.

http://www.markwilliams.com/tools.aspx?CategoryID=240

https://www.cachassisworks.com/iwwidb.pvx?;multi_item_submit

The plate for finding the center of the pinion is handy. (from alston)
There is even a how to pdf there.

If nothing else there are some ideas to work with.