Well, to me your's looks a bit better than what I got and everyone said mine looks like it would work.

Your coast side is much closer to the heal of the gear than mine...don't know exactly what that means.



Drive side looks very similar.


Just curious...did you need to narrow the housing for your car?  If so, did you do it and what process did you use?

BB

Bullet Bob, I was going to push out that axle tube but it would not budge so I had to cut it. Cut out 3 inches right where the spring perch would mount and welded it up. Welded the perches in with the pinion heading up at 3 degrees which matches my transmission angle down. I found in the junk yard on the ground a rearend from a later model Explorer, looks like someone did all the work for me when they took the half shafts. I took off the aluminum diff cover and cut off the ears for my rearend, looks pretty cool.
If this pattern is good on my 8.8, Im going to button it up and install it soon, but the weather may not cooperate! My only other hurdle is the emergency brakes, I think I can get the two short side cables from the Explorer to work.
I am wanting to sell my Versailes rearend as complete as I can keep it for someone who may want it for a Mustang (and yes the emergency brakes work!).

Triton wrote:

 My only other hurdle is the emergency brakes, I think I can get the two short side cables from the Explorer to work.

Thats exactly where I cut mine, however, if I ever do another one I'll cut closer to the center section...much easier to straighten things that way I think.  Which reminds me...if yours needs some straightening I made a tool to do the job.  Like other stuff I offer for loan, it's available for the price of two-way shipping.

As for the e-brake, you are absolutely correct.  I used two exploder short (left side) cables and housings and IIRC I joined two Explorer forward cable sections to the short cable with the explorer cable connectors as seen in the pix(grab them at the bone yard).  Of course I had to clamp the two forward cables together at the front.

Here you can see the brackets I fabed to hold the cable housing.  The Explorer housings won't reach the stock brackest.  If you do something like this be sure to make a back-up plate for the top side of the floor.






I found that the Explorer E-brake needed more leverage than stock to work correctly.  I added two inches to left end of the stock Mustang lever bar.  Now I can set the brake and two of us can't move the car forward or back.  I can move it forward with the engine but it can go anywhere on it's own.

BB

Triton wrote:

Hey that's a great job on the e brakes thanks for the pictures. I'm going to copy your design on the backets. I have a t-5 trans, did you find that you needed a longer or shorter drive shaft? Also I brought home the Exploder alumium driveshaft I was hoping that I might be able to use that too!

As I recall, I had the DS shortened by 3/4" from where it was with the AOD and 8" rearend.  I didn't have an aluminum unit and no decent bone yard nearby so I just stuck with the donor Towncar DS I've been using since I first put the car on the road.

Those brackets are 1/8" X 2" angle iron...easy fab.

BB