My son & I installed a 8 3/4 from a A body into his car. (Non Mopar ) He was complaining about a leak. I figured it was a pinion seal or gasket leaking. The housing is cracked!! Has any one seen this before? Do you think this is repairable or is it better to replace it? His car has 420hp at the rear wheels but only weighs 2500 lbs. It 's had limited traction until he installed new drag radials. Is this why it cracked? I thought the 8 3/4 would hold up since the car is so light.
It could be repaired if dissasemble and clean really well, and put on a jig to weld since I bet it is not straight anymore.
But I would look for another housing myself, I would say it has been hammered on one too many times.
I have seen it one time in a Powerwagon 4 wheeler that was beat on.(not mine)
Thanks Andy! We were going to go to Milan dragway on Friday but that not gonna happen now. Probably better to start looking for a different housing first. This will be a good time to narrow what ever housing we use.
The 8 3/4's aren't too bad price wise and there's a bunch around, it's the right pig that's salty!!
While you are at it back brace it............
I'm building one now for my buddy's 67 Barracuda. He bought a Dana only to find out it won't fit with a stock tank (I kind of warned him but....). Using a 65 Fury housing that I had. Gonna cut it down to the size the will optimize the wheel/combo that he will be using. Going to put the back brace on it and buy a Nodular iron center section complete from Doc Diff.
Personally I would not hesitate to weld that housing up, but would make sure it was straight first. Then I would back brace it. Problem is that at that point it will be twisted so you are probably stuck rewelding the housing ends. You might be lucky and may not twist enough to matter, but it would really need to be checked. You can check it with a jig made for shortening a rear (in the process of making one).