Thread: 8" rear drum brakes

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BTW, I've been studying the picture you posted of your rear axle, and although it's hard to say for sure from the photo alone, there are a couple of things you might want to look at:

1) The spring that I mentioned earlier needs to not have those bends at the end. It not only inhibits the spring from moving properly, but it creates a spot where they can snap.

2) Your pinion is angled down and should be pointing up about 3 degrees.

3) It does look like your transmission tailshaft is close already to the u joint carrier on the rear axle. Ford transmissions are a little long anyway, but the extra length of that Mopar rear axle isn't helping. You might find you actually have to move the spring perch to the back of that rear crossmember to allow you to make a longer driveshaft. My Son is running a C4 transmission in his T bucket and the driveshaft ended up shorter than we would have liked, certainly shorter than the one in my T that has a turbo 350. Even if you leave the rear spring perch as is, I think it needs some additional gusseting.

4) If you cut those brackets off of the rear axle and use the ones Speedway sells that drop the radius rods down below the axle it will give you a better angle on the radius rods. They will be more level and not pointing up as they are in the picture. Not only will it look better, but it will give you more clearance between the radius rods and the back of the body.

5) There is a Volvo oil filter that screws right on the Ford and is waaaaaay shorter. It looks like yours is pretty close to the frame rail. I will get you the part number off of mine and let you know what it is.

Hope you don't mind me mentioning these things, but as long as you are redoing some stuff these might be better to do now than if the car is done.

The picture below shows how the Speedway brackets go and you can see how the radius rods lay on a more level plane.

Don