Transition Camaro

[MX145]

Originally Posted by Vince@MSperfab

hows that rear suspension coming along?

It's all designed but only partially fabricated. The long story behind it is we found the stock Ford 9" housing axle tubes aren't round. Ford built the housing and then machined the bearing and seal surfaces in the ends true to the center section. This is different than the Dana and Chevy housings we've worked on. Now we know why people just cut the ends off without much thought and use a bar with alignment slugs in the carrier and ends. We were thinking people were just a little careless with tolerances but now we know why. We have to do this as well but we still cut the ends off in the lathe and indexed the ends to the housing and true'd up only the ends and the axle tube where the ends press fit before welding. We couldn't true up the entire length because the tubes are somewhat oval and would leave thin spots. If I new this going in I think I would have replaced the axles tubes so the outside OD would be round within a few thousandths instead of 130 thousandths. The tubes being oval shaped by .130 has made things a pain as we don't want to mill the holes in the brackets .130 over to fit. We're still kicking around the thought of machining oval holes in the brackets or machine a round hole compromise and grind as needed to get the brackets indexed properly for the pinion angle. We may even replace the tubes.