Haven't been able to find any information on this rear end I just got. No Name or numbers anywhere. Interweb was useless. Torsion bar suspension also? It's missing a few accessories,
take a picture of the front of the center section. Might be Mopar? The IRS part of it sure looks hand made, to me. So you won't find any info about it, unless you luck into pictures of the car it originally came from.
In the last 50 years there has been many Jag and Vette centers used in custom IRS, and Quick Change's too. There at least a couple manufacurers using cut down 9". I thought the slip yoke for drive shaft axles were unusual and did some searching. Don Tognotti started building the King T in 1962. The jag irs had only been out a year. I got this article from T Bucket Plans. Get ready to be shocked. It was a ’55 Chevy rear end! At least to start with. Then, a very talented builder of sprint cars and midgets named Walt Reiff worked his machinists’ magic on it. Starting with just the center section of the passenger car rear end, it was cut down to where only 4 inches of axle remained on either side. Walt then fabricated inboard Airheart disc brakes in a fashion similar to the Jaguar rear end. From there, the half shafts were fabricated from GMC truck driveshafts that were each shortened by four feet! Walt then fabricated the outer wheel carriers in his machine shop. The lower and upper wishbones were elegantly fabricated from steel tubing and early Monroe Load-Leveler shocks with coil springs were used to control the ride. However, Tognotti’s King T was built strictly as a show car. Another neat feature was how the exhaust was routed out between the half shafts and lower wishbones.
IDK, kinda similar but not matching. The King T had coil overs, a filler plug in the housing and brackets welded below for the lower control arms. There’s some long torsion bars in the OP’s last photo.
I think he provided the story/pictures of that one to show what was done to make the mystery rear end. He's not claiming it's the same one! just the same process that made it. They're both one-offs
Wow some one put a lot of work into that and had some skill . It looks like they used Pinion flanges of some type maybe on the end of the axle stubs going into he diff ?? Id love to see how they did all that . A lot of cool stuff going on there Those rotors look very close to what a Bendi brand electric fork uses . I was eye balling a set on a lift I was working on a few months ago that used Airhart calipers also I have a home made non Hamb approved IRS in MY model A PU that uses a bunch of different IRS parts but I ended up with a 280 or 300 ZX differential. Id love to have a center like that so it was all 1960's type parts and not a Japanese diff . ( Hey it works and looks OK But ) I hope you take and post a lot more pics of it. Any history on it ?
That pumpkin sure looks like a 1950 rear end to me. Not a desirable piece and I understand there is no parts support. Are the rotors welded to the stub axle?
Not an 8" Ford rear, but a 49-56 Ford car rear. Make sure you understand the difference. Neat setup. I wonder what calipers it used?
The half shafts look like the sliding end is off of a front drive shaft of a 4x4 truck. Interesting, love to tear it apart, measure everything up, get bunches of pics and start reassembly, I'd also write down any parts numbers etc I found on bearings, seals etc and put away for future reference.... Really cool.... ...
The areas that stand out to me are the small arms with bends, the big outer bearing supports and the gap between the diff and the brakes. As mentioned, this is almost certainly a custom one off setup, so I doubt it has any online info. Interesting piece of history, a cool work of art, but if you plan on actually attaching to a frame and bolting on wheels, it's going to be a serious quest.
I'd like to see how they had the housing mounted to the frame. Don't see any type of mounting brackets on it. Curious if this housing actually made it under a driven car.... ..
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