Ford 9" Width for AWB Corvair

Hello, my name is John and this is my first post but I have been on this forum for a while waiting to ask a good Question so here it goes. I have a Ford 9" rearend that is about 60" from flange to flange and I'm gonna have it narrowed for free at my school but I don't have wheels or tires to come up with a width for the axle. I'm building it on a very low budget so I don't have money to go out and buy any of that. Its going under a corvair I'm building so I know its gonna be pretty narrow so what can I do?

 

Hi John,
You should have the wheels before you narrow your rear.That way you know the rear spacing on the rims.If you get the rims (tires help too) you can place them under the car where you want them to be,then measure the distance between them for your rear end width (thats a axle flange to axle flange measurement) From there you can get your other measurements (brake size / housing width)

 

wheel and tire catalogs for reference dimensions and cardboard to build a mock up for measuring. be sure to leave room to remove the wheel and tire as a unit

 

I built a telescoping device with wheel hubs on each end that I could bolt tires and wheels to and put it under the car. Spread it out to get the tires in the right location then lock it in place with a couple of bolts used for set screws. Take it out, take off the wheels, and measure the hub to hub distance.

 

Xdrag48 and Lobucrud are right , you need your your wheels/tires mocked up and then measure what width you need

sorry , there is no magic number that a guy on the hamb can pull out of his *** and give you... in the real world you have to measure. that's how the big boys do it

you may think that's cruel , but you have just been given great advice for FREE that many on here learned the hard way

 

Thanks you guys

 

If you know what size tires you want to run, at least borrow some tires and wheels from a friend, or enemy if necessary, and put them under there to do the measuring. Then you will have to make sure you buy the same size tires and wheels with the same back spacing after the axle is installed. Not much could be worse than spending time and $ to narrow an axle then finding out its the wrong width.