Thread: Model A Ratrod -- what's a good drivetrain donor car?

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Iakota,
Cool, man. I'm between Worcester and Boston. Went to school at ULowell and WPI. Small world.

You've got a nice place in San Antonio as well - Alamo and the riverwalk. I've spent a few nights there as well.

Pete

I left Boston in 1965, but kept returning to further my education. Boston and Cambridge are a great place for colleges and universities, but I can't handle the weather. Anything below 70* is frigid to me. Here in San Antonio we have four seasons...Almost summer, summer, still summer, and Christmas. Boston has only two seasons...Ten months of winter and two months of damn poor sledding. Anyways...Have you started on the model A yet?

Here's a pretty good site for finding different dimensions. I agree that it would be neat to get everything from one donor car, but don't sacrifice a good rear end just because it's an 8" Ford (for instance). The 8" will hold up to a Chevy V8 better than most of the wimpy Chevrolet rears you'll find in the smaller cars.
http://www.teufert.net/other/rear%20...dimensions.htm

Richard is right, there is a reason the 8 and 9 inch are the most popular for these sort of swaps...................they fit well. Plus, most of them come with simple brackets to hold leaf springs, so you have less to torch off to get them ready for coil overs or a traverse spring setup.

There is a u joint that is 1/2 chevy and 1/2 ford, so you can use your chevy driveshaft and mate it to the ford rear axle.

These rear ends were put under every mid sized ford from the mid 60's to the late 80's, so there are tons of them out there, and cheap, too.


Don