I have a 9” ford rear in my 55 with a full spool. The car is strictly street driven and am tired of the spool on the street. Can I slide out say my drivers side axle and cut the splines off and re install axle essentially making it a 1 wheel drive? What supports the inner end of the axle? Thanks for any opinions I know its “hokey” hahha
I guess if you just want to go in circles. Probably be safer for all of us if you just cut the splines off of both axles.
In addition to the previous, the axle is supported on that end by the splines. Cutting that support off will exert undue pressure on the wheel bearing.
Why not replace your center section with what you want ? If you're young , it takes less that a day , nuts & bolts , nothing fancy.
Swap center section for another, make sure the spline counts are the same, probably 500 people would trade you straight across center sections to get the spool.
My dude, no. You can ****** up a new ready to go center section for as little as $450.00 and up. You just need to spec out your spline count and ratio when ordering. A couple hours with basic hand tools and you're done. Your idea would literally be a hack job.
Whut he said ^^^^^^^^^^ Just offer it up on Facebook and be sure the spline is the same. Don't know about Canada, but around here I can buy a reasonably complete 9" for about $150 - $200. Your spool is probably worth $100 or so depending on the type.
Post it for trade, especially if you're thinking of cutting an axle to make car usable. Sounds like you'd be happy with an open carrier. As an aside, I have a 8" full spool here, that I'd trade for something else, you can too.
This is what you want. Free-wheeling towing hubs. Just install one I really need to start charging for my advice
I bought a third member with the gear ratio I wanted but it had a spool. Placed it in the free ads for a trade for a regular cage and got a response in very short time.
Save your money and a clutch type posi, or better, an Eaton, Truetrack. JUST DO IT RIGHT............... The life that you save will thank you ! Mike
Absolutely dangerous and worse than a full spool on the street. The car will "torque steer" badly even in a straight line. [and spin out easily] I know somebody that has done this [But for a totally different reason] This was for a street/strip racer that must be street registered, and WOF'd In NZ a locked rear end is illegal and our cars require a roadworthy inspection. So he pulled out the RH 35 spline axle, and re installed an old "broken axle" [approx 12" long] just to p*** the WOF inspection. This saved a lot of labor swapping out the diff heads [the axles need pulling anyway] My advice to your suggestion .......... just find another spare diff head [open diffs are cheap]
OP, if you were closer I could source a 9 inch rear drop in for you. But, cost and shipping would outweigh finding on in your area. Many, well, humorous replies. But sift through the ones that tell you to replace it
You need to pull and axle out and count the splines if you don't know the count. then as others said, find a third member with the right gears and swap it out. get the car up on stands, pull the axles, put a pan under the pumpkin to catch the gear oil.. unbolt the third member and pull it out and either set it aside or put it up for trade or sale. I've bought 31 spline F 150 rear ends from the early 70's for between 150 and 200 for good rear ends. I've got a complete one with 3.0 gears that I would take 200 for today. That is an open rear end with no limited slip though.
Man if you ever saw a car make a p*** with a broken axle it can be one wild ride, you know when it happens. Right turn klide!
Depends on what you have and what you want to do. If you have a floater rear end and the axle is splined on both ends, you could just remove one axle and limp to the ice cream stand or to a shop to get it fixed correctly. Its not going to torque steer. An open rearend only pulls one wheel at a time. Remember jacking the car up by turning right and standing on it to do the "one wheel peel"? Remember the old cheap go- carts that didnt have a live axle that the chain only drove one wheel? They go the way you point the steering wheel. The only thing I'd be worried about would be breaking the axle if you had a big enough tire to hook it up. Still I agree with the rest, just change the chunk. Good Luck.
Actually an open rear still has torque being applied to both axles even though one isn’t spinning, it’s always split 50/50. An open differential will deliver enough torque to overcome the wheel with the least amount of traction but both sides see that torque. On a semi floater the inside of the axle is supported by the differential bearings, shortening one axle is a really bad idea…
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