Hi! Has anyone here ever shortened the axles of a rear differential to bring the rear wheels closer to each other?
I was thinking of doing such a thing but I'm just worried that the alignment might not be good after.
This is commonly done when custom race cars of various types are constructed. There are companies which can do it for you. Shortening the axle tubes is not so hard. Shortening the axles themselves requires some special effort.
Its very commonplace when working with cars from the muscle-car era. There are two common reasons- 1) using a heavy duty rear axle from a common-but-not-popular large car to restore a popular-but-rare muscle car (for example, using an 8-3/4 rear axle from a Plymouth Fury for a Barracuda instead of finding the much rarer narrow 8-3/4). 2) narrowing the rear axle to accomodate enormously wide slicks.
It has to be done carefully, and re-splining the axles may be the most critical part. But yeah, its done all the time.
Most folks I know use a rim with a different offset or backspace to adjust where the tires sit.
That said, it isn't uncommon to see shortened axles. It's a pretty big job though to get the alignment correct. The person doing it needs to know what they are doing.
Mike
86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's - Gone to the rust pile...Mike Romain wrote in news:47162e44$0$5180 $ snipped-for-privacy@unlimited.newshosting.com:
ok I can`t stand it any more!!!!!!!!!!! It is a narrowed rear not a shortened rear. KB
????????
'I' used the words 'shortened axles', not rear if you will notice...
Mike
I dont think anybody called it a shortened rear.
Well to be fair to KB, the SUBJECT is "shorten differential," which makes no sense on at least two levels, if I were to let it bother me ;-)
One, you're not shortening, you're narrowing (as pointed out)
Two, the 'differential' is the mechanism inside the center "pumpkin" of the axle. Nobody's doing one darn thing to it- you're shortening the axles and narrowing the axle housing. The differential itself isn't involved at all in the process.
Yep, I thought about that as well, but decided to let sleeping dogs lie.
We are talking about narrowing an axle housing and shortening the axle shafts.
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