Thanks, Dave. Good info to have. I'd like to find a couple of those 3.50/ 3.55s for a reasonable price. Anything for an 8-inch around here is scarce and at least double the price of a 9-inch. Ford may have made millions more of them, but they apparently didn't survive. Everybody wanted the 9-inchers, so the 8's just got scrapped. The Spicer style "drop out the back" rears have been common since the 70s and that's about all you see in the junkyards around here...

The 9-inch has been around since 1957 and was used in full-size cars as well as trucks and vans. Do you know when they stopped making them? Just a few years ago I could buy them complete drum-to-drum for $50 - $100; now $250 is sonsidered a steal. Supply & demand I suppose. That's what makes the Toyota pickup rear so attractive...