more than likely rear end will require rebuild, side gears and/or axle splines could be worn, which can cause excessive play, and that clunking noise. best to take it to a good transmission/rear end shop and they can take a look. good thing about Ford 8 and 9", if you have the time, you can remove the axles and 3rd member easy enough and bring them to a shop to check out with the amount of play you described, it sounds like rear will require some sort of attention.....good luck!
i'm thinking you guys with the gearing teeth brokenor something loose in pumpkin are right...all brake hardware is tight and intact...the play in around u joints in the driveshaft near the tranny tunnel is minimal and I would hear that sound inside coming from the hump behind front seats if it was hitting...the shock mounts/tower i'll look into in the morning just to double check I know I need to replace all shocks but when I was looking over the leaf spring bushings and stuff on the suspension I didn't notice the mounts being loose but i'll double check...I was hoping it wasn't something in the rear end but feared it was...rebuilt one rear end on a 88 bronco when spider gear broke completely loose in it but was able to take the back cover off this 9" I cant just take it off and i'm not comfortable rebuilding a rear end on my own quite yet like I aid only done one...guess i'm going to look harder into that 8.8 with disc swap if I am replacing the rear end might as well get what I want and have the disc brakes...lol thanks again everyone for their advice i'll keep you posted....have had this car since I was 15 and was once on this forum and Craig's Maverick club but life took over and had to put things on back burner and now i'm getting back into it so thank you i'm sure i'll have plenty more questions to come
i wouldnt swap a 9" to an 8.8 to just get disk brakes. you can get disk brake kits starting for around $450. you can get 9" thirdmembers all ready rebuilt on ebay for around $800 or find a better deal on craigslist. if you brought your thirdmember in to my shop for repair, the cost could be as low as $300 depending on the damage.
yea but i'm on a budget and the cost is much cheaper for me to get an 8.8 from a local junkyard which is under $100 for the entire rear end, another $100-$150 in all new hardware and from what I read I need some welding done and there's a really good local shop that's also reasonably priced I can almost do everything under $500
make sure that the housing is straightened after the welding is done. i see it all the time at my shop, people will weld on the rear end and think they didnt warp the tubes. then in a few years the spider gears are eaten up and axles worn out from the housing being bent. if the tubes aren't warped after welding then the welds were not hot enough and are not stong. you can get explorer or ltd disk brakes that will bolt onto some of the housing end bolt patterns of 9" rear ends. it depends on what ends are on your 9". if you goto the 8.8 you can sell the 9" and most likely brake close to even.
yea that was kinda my plan if I do swap rears was selling the 9" to help my cost...I heard about warping the axle when I was reading up a lot on the swap
look at your universal, I had one we're one out of the four sides was worn out and it would make a noise
