The 16's look good prob a bit lighter than bigger too.


Your spindle shields reminded me cause I just cleaned mine. I used to sandblast everything and while brutal messy and possibly unhealthy I switched over to hot tanking everything.


A small plastic tub, some muriatic acid/water per instructions and soak for a day or 2 and viola -turns out beautiful and can use over and over.

Sand blasting is the plan. I've got a cabinet so no worries.

SN95 axles in the 83 7.5 and rear disc brakes:


https://www.cmoc.ca/attachment.php?a...ine=1475269801


https://www.cmoc.ca/attachment.php?a...ine=1475269801


Currently cleaning and painting calipers.


8.8 axles are hard to find around here and when you do, stupid expensive. One guy I found wanted 700 bucks for a rusty (and I mean RUSTY) 1996 one with seized brakes. No thanks. Yards don't have any and when you do find them they're rusted junk. And they still want 250-350 for them.


My car is only going to be street driven and around the 300 hp mark so a 7.5 will do until a reasonably priced, decent shape 8.8 shows up.


Crappy thing is both 7.5's are 2.73's. I'll keep my eyes open for a ranger/Bronco II 7.5. They could be had with 3.73 and T lok. Still not great, but better than an open 2.73. At least Ranger 7.5's are a dime a dozen around here. Should be able to find something that will work.


I was just going to swap in the 96 SN95 axle, but tearing it down revealed the seal area on the tubes was rusted so thin I could squeeze it with my hand and distort it. The axle in the 83 hasn't seen winter roads in a couple decades so it was in much better shape, making swapping the SN95 stuff into it a "no brainer"....

If my memory serves me well..... 7.5, and 8.8 axles are the same (same axles) so I wouldn't bother hunting for a set from an 8.8. But upgrading to an actual 8.8 housing complete is for sure a great investment.
Awesome work so far.

They are and yup, center section is the difference.

Housing, carrier, ring ,pinion side gears, etc. All are bigger.

That's why I grabbed a 7.5 from an sn95 when I found it cheap. 5 lug axles and disc brakes transfer right over to an 8.8.

Side gears on a 7.5 are a weak point. Some say the pinion is alao. The 8.8 has bigger side gears and can take much more torque and the latter carrier resists deflection much better.

8.8 also has vastly more aftermarket support than a 7.5

:)

Yup. I went threw this when I popped the 7.5 in my old 85 GT. Back then I found an 8.8 assembly for 150 bucks..... Back when people didn't rape you for every dime, and nickel out of your pocket!!!! lol

Oh so true!

Everyone who has a fox 8.8 to sell around here seems to think they're made of platinum or gold. It's just a rusty old axle ferchristsake!

Lol!

In for the winter:

https://www.cmoc.ca/attachment.php?a...ine=1476454878

It's tight, but the car is on casters so moving it around to work on it is do-able. The bikes will be in the back of the garage once winter hits, so there will be lots of room to move it as needed.

Floor pan showed up:

https://www.cmoc.ca/attachment.php?a...ine=1476454878

Nice piece for 200 shipped to my door. Panel is a nice thick gauge, well formed and strong. Rock auto comes through again.

I was going to just replace the front (was cheaper to order a full pan than just the front, go figure), but this is such a niece piece I'm just going to do the full pan replacement. My rear seat mounts have been repaired once, so just doing the full pan makes sense.

The 8.8 rear end quest is coming together. Had a gent offer me a fox 8.8 rear for free, I just have to drive 1.5 hr to pick it up. Only catch is it's empty. Just a housing.

Then a 96 explorer rear end showed up on kijiji locally. Guy wanted 150 bucks. It's a 3.73 trac-lok axle, but the problem is it's 31 spline and the fox is 28 spline.

The differential will drop into the fox 8.8, but the sn95/fox axle shafts won't work. The Diff won't take 28 spline side gears and the explorer axles use bigger outer wheel bearings and are too long to fit in the fox chassis. The Explorer drivers side axle is approx 30.5" and the 94-98 SN95 axles are 29.9"-ish. That will put the wheel outer edge right at the wheel well lip in my fox. Just too wide. Having a significantly wider rear track than front would also introduce some handling traits that won't be the greatest for autocross work.

The explorer axle won't work under the fox either. It would need axle tube work, brackets and at least a torque arm/panhard bar suspension as the upper control arm lugs are not cast in the center section. I'm planning on a torque arm suspension eventually, but I need the car mobile until that time so the upper control arms need to be in place. Compounding the issue is that the center casting doesn't have provisions for the mounting area that a torque arm would bolt to.

Luckily, you can get fox length 31 spline conversion axles aftermarket. So I'll probably just bite the bullet and order a pair out of the states, drop 'em in and call it done. Probably end up dropping somewhere around 400 CAD after shipping, exchange, taxes etc.

But I did get the explorer axle for 100 bucks. It will supply lots of the small bits that nickle and dime you to death as well as the differential and gears. Pretty good deal overall. I'll have to replace bearing and seals, but that's a given with any project like this.

So I'm into a fox 8.8, 3.73 gear, 31 spline, trac-lok for 100 bucks if I don't count the fuel I'll burn to pick up the housing. Another hundred if you take into account the SN95 rear disc brake system.

I'll come out somewhere around 500-600 for a 31 spline fox axle. That's pretty good for a "set it and forget it" rear axle that I can beat on in autocross, infrequent drag strip use or spirited street driving. 3.73 with the T5 is going to be a great all around ratio too.

So the rear axle is going to go from one of my largest worries for racing abuse to the least of my worries.

:)

How big of a job is the floor pans? Besides removing the interior and anything attached the the underside of the pans, is it just cut out and weld in?

Pretty much. It's a lot of fitting and welding.

The cross brace is a pita and you have to get good solid welds between the pan and the subframe pieces. Get it wrong and the unibody is compromised.

I'm going to be welding in subframe connectors at the same time.