There is nothing comparable to do a swap with - if that is what you are going after. The "guts" are completely different than the 8" or 9" - totally different axle design. As for the over all length of the rear - it should be 56" if I remember right.
Yes, 56 1/2" wide at the brake drum face - and the spring perches are 43" wide on center. You can go a little wider and just make it up with backspacing on your wheels.
a fox 8.8 rear is 1 inch wider per side if you dont have wheels you can just get a different backspacing to make up the difference i just put one in my 70 grabber on friday brad
did you narrow the rear at all,or just drop it in? how did you measure for the spring pads?i got a ton of questions for you. i have a set of mustang pony wheels now,if the rear goes in without axle changes that helps a ton.
you dont want to deal with narrowing the 8.8. its axles are retained by c-clips. these consist of a c-clip that slides over the buton machined on the end of the axle shaft. so if you cut the diff housing and narrow it by a inch on both sides you have 3 options. the first one is to send the axles out to a company like dutchman who will cut the axle down respline it and machine a new buton into is. this is not good because the axles when they were origanly made they were machined first then case hardened. this means the the surface of the shaft is hardened. so when they cut and machine the new spilnes in, its in the soft metal and doesnt get hardened again. this makes them weak and prone to breakage. second option is ordeing new axles custom made to the shorter length. the companys that will make c-clip axles to custom lenghts use already made blanks that are already hardened before machineing the splines and c-clips. this results in the same problems that the first option has. third option and the best one is to put bearing retained axle ends on to the 8.8 and use a 8" or 9" axleshaft. this is the best way to go and i would recomend it if you really want to stay with the stock maverick width. you can the housing ends with the mustangs brakes bolt patterns or the 8"/9" brakes. with the axles being bearing retained you get the added saftey of if you break a axle at the common place of where the splines end the axle will stay in the car. also its required to have bearing retained axles if your car is faster than a 11.5 at a nhra drag strip. now with all that said, i really recomend puting the 8.8 in with out narrowing it. you will need to cut off the brackets that are on the tubes then you will need to weld on new leafspring pads in the correct location for the mavericks leafs. also the pinion angle with drive shaft will need to be maintained. when you weld on axle tubes they will bend towards the weld. this will take the housing ends out of alignement with the centerline of the carrier. this requires the housing to be streightened. if its doesnt get streightend it will cause the spider gears to get worn out pretty fast and if you have a posi, wich the mustang 8.8 had stock will wear out really fast. usually a chassie shop that builds dragsters has the ablity to streighten the diff housing. so i hope you have enough knowlage now to make a good decision. what gear ratio is in your 8.8 right now? if its stock you would probly be better off geting a 5 lug 8" and puting a posi and gears in to it.
Axle I am prone to replacing the whole rear end. You can always put a good set of gears of your choice in it. The 8" rear end carries 10" brakes and different wheel cylinders. They have to be a little larger to handle the 10" drums. I recently changed mine in my 65 Falcon. I found a donor car and ended up changing the front and rear completely with a C4 and putting a B&M shifter to it. It was a 289 with a edelbrock intake and edelbrock 600cfm 4bbl. This engine runs awsome. You might look for a donor car also that way you can change the front suspension to the V8 stuff. Good luck.
i am leaning towards putting the 8.8 in without narrowing,from what i gather the width difference is small.my 8.8 has under 100 miles on it with a very tight trak-loc and 4.11 gears.
stock length fox axle and housing just ground off the brackets set in on the perches and measured the same distance from axle flange to spring I'm running c-clip eliminator's to hold in the axles i pulled a rim off the wifes cobra 17x8 with 275/40/17 tires and they fit real nice send me a e-mail and i can help you out tomorow after work bradleygt99@tds.net brad
I seriously doubt a company like Moser would be in business for over 25 years by making a product that is weak and prone to breakage. But I will call them up today and see if this is true.
OK,I called Moser and your half right. The axles are case hardened before machining but it is not true that splines are cut down to the soft metal. Case hardening the axle goes much deeper than the splines so they are not weaker.
i have a question my car has front and rear drums could i just find a five lugged drum and fit it on where the four lug one went ???? i was thinking other mavericks might of had a five lug front drum brake system and it would fit right on anyone think that might work cause it would save alot of time and money
