The first 9" was bolted in at the factory in 1957, same year as the introduction of the GM 10 1/4" rear used in Pontiac and Olds ('57-'64). Tough as nails. No way of knowing when the first hot rodder used them, but I'm sure it wasn't long after the '57 introductions. We used a narrowed 10 1/4" with 3.90 gears in my son's '72 Chevy Luv pickup (455 Olds/TH400).
In the early 60s the Olds was king for racing. It wasn't until NASCAR started to use them and Currie and others made it easy for a regular guy with cash easy to use them. The after market made it easy. Later in the sixtys for the desired race car rears. They were around since 57 but not desired as race car rears until later. I can't say exactly when the change occurred but it was not in the early sixties and not a snap thing. More of a gradual evolution.
Good attitude. Don't build it like you want. Build it like someone else would'a done back in the day.
Back in the day it was very rare for a hotrodder to have a Ford rear narrowed for a Deuce to run on the street. Most were 55-57 Chevies. At least in my area code and income bracket.
I'm thinking that Currie started out cutting down 9 inch rear ends for fork lifts and electric trucks that were used around factories like the Taylor-Dunn carts. even before they were started selling them for hot rods. I've seen cut down nine inch rear axles in the older Taylor-Dunn electric trucks. The 57 nine inch rear ends became popular with rodders soon after they came out. A lot of early 60's rods had 57 Ford rear axles and for some reason a lot of them seemed to have station wagon rear axles.
A lot of us were still using 55-57 Chevy rears well into the 60's, and even the early 70's. We broke a lot of them, but they were about $15 at the junkyard and easy to swap out. Don
In 57 Chevy changed to a heavier axle bearings than the 55-56 and Ford came out with the 9 inch. The station wagon, Ranchero and convertibles had bigger axle bearings and heavier brakes making them particularly desirable. John L
I know the OP, and I know he IS wanting to get it like the old ways Knowing what you already have for : motor/carbs, trans, front end...I would say later 50s build style, right up to 62 or so. That time frame is pretty flexible for styling and parts, as some were just local driven rods, some were built for local autorama, and some to race.
First I've heard of a 10 1/4 inch Olds/Pontiac rear. I always thought the tough ones were the 9.3 inchers.
Well it was a big deal to find a 57 Chevy axle bearing in the late 70s. I Don't know if the aftermarket has filled the void since then.
Correct. This is a 59 wagon rear under the '36. Not modified in any way. Not even the axle pads when used with a CE parallel leaf spring kit. 57, 58, and 59 are alike. John L
Here's a 57 truck housing I'm in the process of narrowing. Note 1/4 wall tubes. This one is getting off the shelf 31 spline bronco axles. I really like the smooth back on it looks much better them the later housings on the bump
I can totally understand that you are trying to build the car into a certain era. Instead of going for a 100% traditional build like pulled out of a time machine, it's not totally wrong to have a hot rod that would have had period correct repairs, like a survivor hot rod. The banjo that would have been standard, and most likely tore up throughout the early years, would have had that 9" swapped in 1957. If you could mount it in a traditional way, there's really no harm in having that upgrade. Yeah not the prettiest of installs and I know it is a later model 9"! Anyway the tough thing is going to be to make sure the rest of the car follows suit. And whose to complain of a hot rod that can plain haul ass! TP
This old Chevy P/U was parked here in '91 after a Chevelle front end swap and a '57 '59 9" Ford Wagon rear. Trying to decide if I like the tree more than the 9" or save the 9" and plant a new tree! Maybe Ford rears do grow on tree's!
Late '50s and '60s is pretty much the same, there was a recession around '58 and after it lifted all hell broke loose in rodding circles, people started to paint their cars again or to finish up what they had, upholstery became important as well as fancy wheels. A lot of Norwell's art seems to be later '50s earlier '60s themed, take a look at some of his stuff. http://www.jeffnorwell.com/ Uh don't tell him I said that he may have a different opinion. I would avoid the way out whacky show rod stuff you just really didn't see that on the street anywhere that I was. A thing to remember is that hot rodding and custom building was regional, Nor Cal was different than So Cal for instance; or bringing it closer to home, Tommy and I remember things differently, we lived in different areas of the country. Tommy is pretty sharp and he can tell you down to the rivets what was done where he lived, but our memories differ because we ran in different circles. Does that make any sense?
As for the Currie references, although they have been around since 1959, they didn't start doing Hot Rod or Off Road rear ends until the late 70's - It was fork lift, golf carts, and other material handling type devices that they were making them for. And it was really the 80's before they started to really get big in the Hot Rod market. So they aren't a good time reference. I started seeing them in the 60's after the Mustang came out, and think the popularity really started around the mid to late 60's - at least in So Cal.
Like said before most '50 '60s rods around here anyway would have been running the Olds or Pontiac in the period your talking about......................
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