Now that my 62 wagon is finally being shipped, I am planning the work to be done. One question I have is, what is the rear axle. The housings are unique to the 61-63 F-85s and Buick Specials, but the Richmond gear catalog says that they use the same 8.2" gears and center section parts as the 64-70 cars with that axle. Does anyone know this for sure? One of the first things I want to do is to convert to five bolt hubs. Moser can make custom axle shafts but I'm torn between keeping the stock housing (which would be a lot easier) or adapting a more common 10-bolt. If the center section is common, that makes life very easy, as I have an 8.2 anti-spin already.

 

Joe, I can tell you that rear is NOT made for performance. I have rebuilt 3 of them over the past 1-2 years. The axles are smaller than a 6.5 vega...ouch real small.
Everything to the rear is unique to those years. If you can retro fit a 10 bolt 8.2 from 64-72 it will be a better way to go.

The best ratio is 3.36 ring gear is about the same as a 8.2 it uses a power lock posi unit if you can find one and the pinion shaft is still pretty thick...BUT it is the 23 spline axle shafts and the very small quater size spider gears that will NOT handle any power. Carrier bearing are hard to find and again unique to the rear. Seals for the axles and pinion are unique and the axle bearings are unique too. We spent lots of money on a rear that could have spent on a larger rear. But the gentleman was into original rebuilt rear number matching etc.

Here are some pictures of the rear-

Jim - J D Race.com

I will see if I can dig up Toms number in Nebraska he can give you all the info you ever want to know about them. Trust me if your going to put any power in the car you will have to swap a rear on this one. NOT too many times I say a rear will not hold ...BUT in this case IT IS NECESSARY. Jim

 

Thanks Jim. I was afraid of that. I was a little concerned about swapping complete housings due to the difference in the upper control arm mounting. I'm not concerned about stock and I plan to upgrade to disks and five bolt wheels anyway. Mainly I wanted to know if it was worth paying Moser for custom axle shafts or just having another axle narrowed (and fabricating control arms). I guess I have the answer.

 

Jim,

Do you have any experience with welding steel tabs for the upper control arms onto the cast iron (or is it cast steel) center section of a GM axle? Specifically it looks like the 2WD S-10 axle is about the right width and has the 5 x 4.75" bolt circle. Obviously it's leaf spring. It would be very nice if I could weld the ears for the upper arms directly to the center section, since that would allow me to preserve the angle of the upper arms. My fallback is tabs on the axle tubes and custom upper arms with ball joints at the ends. My concern with that solution is that the angle of the upper arms starts to get too wide and there might be a problem with lateral location of the axle. I'd appreciate any thoughts.

 

Tom's Differential's
900 Kootenai Cutoff Rd
Ponderay,Idaho,83852
208-265-8111

Tom's a great guy,& real sharp on this stuff.I also know a few guys with those cars,& have swapped the rear out for something else.I'll ask them to see what they had to do,& maybe there will be a common denominator.