Ford 9"

[rdc]

Ive been going around to a few junkyards looking for 9" rearends. I bought one today drum to drum out of a 1980 panel van. The third member had a tag on it with the following numbers....
WEV AK 8MB

2 75 9 732A

Can anyone tell me what gears are in this rearend?

[rdc]

Call your local Ford Dealer with a parts department. They can tell you all about it with just those #'s. And if they can't call Ajax Wrecking and speak to Wesley 760-398-0147. I took a ranger brain to him once and he told my all about it in about 2 min..

Tony <P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by Tigger on 04/25/01 10:15 PM (server time).</FONT></P>

[jeff]

Since you are most likely going to take the rear end apart you might try counting the number of teeth on the ring gear and dividing that by the number of teeth on the pinion gear. If you have 41 teeth on the ring gear and 10 on the pinion gear you get a 4.10 gear ratio. Another option is to set the rear end up on blocks or stands of some type... you might need two people or a mirror to do this... Make a mark on one of the outer hubs and note its location, 1-o'clock, 5-o'clock etc... and another on the yoke at the 3rd member... Then you turn the yoke (pinion) very slowly and count how many times the hub goes around. If you turn the yoke one complete revolution and the hub spins just a nats ass over 4 times, you have a 4.10... if you turn the yoke one revolution and the hub turns about 3-3/4 turns, you probably have a 3.73. If you make accurate marks and pay close attention, you can pretty accurately calculate what ratio you've got.

Decoding the numbers isn't always accurate - I decoded a junkyard 9" a couple years ago and bummed out when I got it home, opened it up, and realized someone had performed a nasty gear swap with some cheapo 3.00-3.08 gears.

[rdc]

True Jeff, the numbers may not match what is really inside anymore. But you genrally can tell if someone other than the factory put it together. As for your yoke turning. You got it backwards. And from experince it is not that easy. But hey I was using a girl friend to help and I was outside in the snow! Maybe my brain was frozen?? I think you might try turning both axles at the same rate and direction and count the number of times the yoke goes around for one turn of the axle. Other wise if it is not a locker the spiders with screw things up.

Tony

[DougM]

It appears you have an "open" 3.73 rear end, if my manual is correct.

[jeff]

Yep - that's the last time I post late at night. I transposed the hub / yoke. I've seen way too many Ford 9" rear ends that either have the wrong tags, no tags, or mix and matched internals. To clarify the yoke / hub deal... rotate the yoke by hand and count the number of driveshaft revolutions required for one revolution of the hub. So 4.5 turns of the yoke would equal one complete rotation at the hub. It's always easier to turn the yoke end versus trying to turn the hub end. Imagine having it the other way around... you could go 200mph just above idle. I outta re-read my posts before I click that submit button.

[FABRICATOR]

Most rear ends have numbers on the end of the pinion shaft where the big nut goes. Not sure about all Ford 9", but most have something like "13 - 47" or similar, along with some other numbers. This is the actual number of teeth on the pinion and ring gear, and just need to be divided. They can be seen without taking anything apart. And if they are there, they are never wrong.