Nighthawk!

[De$ertBronco]

I have had nothing but issues with 8.8's so when i bought this bronco and it needed a rebuilt rear end i decided to just put a 9" in right away. Mine was out of a bronco so it is the same width as the 8.8 and with my current 15x8 eagle 058's with a 3.25" backspacing and 35's I hit my quarter panels.. an econoline is around 3" wider so im pretty sure even with a more ideal backspacing you would hit. i ran a standard length pinion yoke and stock driveshaft for a while with stock springs and i didnt have a problem but was told it should have been longer. Not sure the length difference between the 2 but the long yoke may be all you need.

[De$ertBronco]

You will also need a vss relocator kit and adjust your PSOM for it to shift right and the speedo to be accurate. I got mine from brandon (hollander motorsports) and it works perfect. I heard the curt leduc one is machined to your tire size and gear ratio so you don't have to mess with the psom, but not 100% on that.

[birdco85]

Yeah Brandon has one for me. He's a buddy of mine. And that pretty much answers the econoline question. I'm running the stock Alcoa's and I do not want to change those. So now I need to find a stocker. I might even try to regear it myself.

Anyone have one for sale!!!???

[cs_drums]

Unless you plan on trussing the stock bronco housing is better. Thicker tubes. Also I have yet to go to Leduc and not see at least a couple sets of nice 35 spline axles for the stock housing.

[birdco85]

What do you mean the stock housing is better? You mean the 8.8? Or the stock bronco 9" housing. I am going to truss it. I just know that at some point I'm going wider up front which means wider in the back and if I can salvage the 3rd member and transfer to a wider housing that will save a bunch. I don't really want to drop 500+ into the 8.8. I know I won't get it back out of it. I would like to do 35 spline if money permits. If I find a 31 spline with locker already I will roll with that. Otherwise I'll go straight to 35 spline

[De$ertBronco]

the stock bronco 9" is better than the econoline 9" for the simple fact that it has .250 wall tubes rather than .188 tubes. I just sold my bronco 9" housing and now im running brian's (cs_drums) old housing which is an econoline housing cut down to stock bronco width that has a giant truss and was trued so i'm not worried about it. like brian said the leduc swap meet is a good place to look for housing and axles if you can make it out it is this sunday.

[birdco85]

I didn't know the bronco housing was .250 wall. That's awesome. I figured it would be. 188 like the 8.8. And I went to the swap meet in September I think it was and I didn't see anything that time. Dttback and I might be making a deal so we'll see.

[dtbback]

Yup. I just have to see if the 9" I have has a detroit in it like the guy I bought it from said it does. Need a couple of hours and a buddy to run to my storage locker and spin one side and check. I am wanting to save for a full floater 9" since my 8.8 is in decent condition right now, even though the drive shaft needs a rebuild. Could put the money toward that and some other gofast stuff that is still outstanding on my parts list. It never ends lol.

[birdco85]

So got the 9" from Will. After researching the axle tag it is from a 75-79 for series. I'm sure that includes bronco. It is a track lock also but only 3.00 gears! It appears to be the big bearing, it's a pretty big tapered bearing. It also has the 3/8" tbolts do I know it's not the old big bearing because I'm pretty sure they had 1/2" bolts. I'm not sure if the exact year though. I can't quite figure the build date out. I'm gonna rebuild it and want to make sure I get the right parts. The bearings are definitely old and the seals look terrible. Any suggestions on replacement bearings? And I'm going to check the clutch plates to see if I should rebuild the track lock.



The top line is WFE ABC 1K22
Second line is 3L00 91S3233
I know the WFE AB is 75-79 f series, the 3L00 is 3.00:1 with track lock. The rest I don't know. Every build date I've seen is 2 letters and 1 number. any help on build date?

[De$ertBronco]

that housing was actually built 197(1),october(K) (22)nd. the letter i is omitted so that it isn't confused with 1, so K is the 10th (october) letter associated with the month of the date code... just a little FYI. the 9 on the bottom simply means 9" ring gear the S323B is the plant coding. My electronic catalog only goes back to 1980, but to find the proper parts it usually asks for the axle model and plant coding to identify the correct parts. BUT!! 73-86 F150 and 78-86 Bronco are the proper widths so that rear axle is probably a little narrow... I have seen some funky rear ends in my day, so it is possible ford made that rear end in the end of 71 to go on a 73 f150, but i would definitely measure it for sure!

[De$ertBronco]

i just checked my book and i don't even show a listing for a WFE-AB(C)<--- the AB does show 75-79 from what i read, and AC shows 73-79 F100 or 75-79 F150, but it states they would have had 3.25 gears! the date code year is a 1 and WFE is 70's, so unless that isn't a 1 here we go again with funky rear ends haha

[birdco85]

I did measure and it's exactly the same width. ThiThis is the past I found

[birdco85]

It was bought from Mike, the guy that was selling the champagne colored bronco in the classefieds with all the extras. He said it came from a bronco but unsure of what year. I don't mind if it's from a 71 pick up. It is a 31 spline. And for sure a big bearing, it had to be. I wonder if it's the wrong tag? Did they have 31 spline in 71?

[De$ertBronco]

okay i think i might have figured it out!! I think it is actually a WFE-BC from 1981... That shows for a Ford F100/F150 Pickup '81-'82, 3.00 GEARS, 9.0" RING GEAR, LOCKING, 31 SPLINE

[birdco85]

That makes way more sense! I wonder what the A means? Makes me feel a little better too!

[De$ertBronco]

It is either a typo or some guy did it as a joke to piss us parts guys off!! i think it's safe to say it's a BC for sure, it matches perfectly with everything im seeing.

[birdco85]

Yeah. Thanks for all your help!

[ChaseTruck754]

it's gotta be from an F-150. F-100's from 80-82 (might have stopped in '81) are an oddball 5 x 4.5 lug pattern. The 9"s out of these were semi sought after for guys with Rangers. I think they might be 28 spline as well.

[birdco85]

Chase truck, is there any significant difference between it being from an F150 or a bronco? They look identical.

[philofab]

Housing and center were the same, drums and axles were different. The front beams from 80-82 F100 were sheetmetal on 2wd. Very weird.