TFS: How to Narrow a Ford 8.8 Part 1 - Strip Down

oh the ford 8.8 i absolutely loved this rear axle I love this diff I love this configuration I love this availability I love everything about this thing not to mention I love how easy it is to work on now easy is a point of view based on the person doing the job but we here at EFS like to make this as easy as possible for anybody doing the job and that's what we're gonna knock out today you [Music] so of course before we get to narrowing this rear-axle we actually have to disassemble it so the complete teardown of it begins with removing everything that is essentially well bolted or stuck to it now if you are going to pick one of these up from the yard it is highly recommended that you pick it up with two right-side axles and purchase it with the two right-side axles and of course we'll get into the reasons why and all the rest that good stuff later but disassembly pretty quick in just a moment I'll show you how to get the axles out [Music] now first you need to locate the bolt for the spider cross pin and this is a gonna eight millimeter head on it and you simply just take it out until the threads are loose you could pull in a little bit just to pull it out of there and get it ready to remove slide your hand underneath it get some pressure on the spider pin itself and pull it out through the top and you can rotate it around push in on the axle and you'll see the c-clip is revealed from the c-clip retainer all you have to do is get any look like a little screwdriver or something like that pop it out as soon as it comes out slide the axle out of there now don't forget to go back and actually remove the c-clip from the differential housing in the event that it fell out through there you definitely don't want to forget about it have it get stuck lose it later or anything like that [Music] all right tear down is pretty much complete that was relatively easy to do in fact it was extremely easy to do because well these diff to work on now couple of things I want to point out this gear said inside of here in this entire differential bearings plates LSD the whole works is going to be rebuilt by us as soon as we get this thing narrowed so at this present time I'm not going to worry about this being left open but if you are worried about it being left open go ahead and put your differential plate or your cover plate back on here to try and cover and keep most of the dust out of it however do note that that you are going to be cutting and slicing on these axle tubes and these axle tube housings are actually left open so you're not going to keep all the dust and dirt and debris out of it you're still going to need to clean it now on the fabrication Series website on the bill blog we do have a concoction of what we call differential soup which is nothing more than warm water and any greaser that once this is all assembled I fill it back up here and let it soak for a while then clean it back out so that way it flushes out all the dirt and debris you can read up on that one if you want to make sure you check the description for the links below here but that's one thing that I'm gonna note on here if you don't want to you know worry about destroying it or anything like that cover it back up the second thing it was not necessary to actually pull off the backing plates and the brake shoe assemblies it wasn't necessary but it does make it easier in this case because I have these tabs that I have to actually cut off of here and with that back in play here it was it was limiting the accessibility for it so I just went ahead and removed those plus it makes it a little less bulky and a little bit less difficult to work on when I have this section here that's going to be cut down so with all of that out of the way it's time for the full-on stripped down which means we're gonna grab a hold of a paint marker and a grinder and cut all this stuff off of here let's get on it so like many of us I do not have a plasma cutter or a smoke wrench readily accessible here in my shop so we're gonna have to go a little primitive style we're gonna have to grab a hold of the cutoff wheel on the end of the grinder so usually this doesn't mean you have to actually trace all this stuff out but you know what it helps me kind of guide my way through as I'm grinding even with the experience that I have so I like to grab a hold of a paint marker and I like to mark out where I'm actually going to cut now it makes great difficulty trying to make a cut-off wheel go around a radius like this and in fact it's more likely to explode if you attempt to do that so we're gonna attempt to make straight cuts now back to the old days of the TFS here you know we know that we can always take metal away we can't necessarily put it back on so a good old-fashioned straight cut with a cut-off wheel and remove the bulk and the rest of it will come off with our flap disk now if you're using a plasma cutter or torch or smoke wrench or any of those things there you know the pot this is and the grinder is still gonna have to do the exact same thing so one thing I like to do is make a good straight cut across the top to divide it in two pieces then I'm gonna slice up one side slice up the other side slice the bottom slice the top whatever remains will come up with a grinder do the exact same thing to all of these tabs [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] that is a lot of grinding dust but you know what at least the tabs are off of it but I did keep a couple of them in place one of them is here the other one is here both of these hold the metallic brake line of the brake hard line they hold it in place I wanted to keep those in here just in case we ever have to use them again in the future but the entire tube is cleaned off smooth and of course I did focus all of my area and making sure it's nice and clean in this section now we do have some gouging that we have to deal with but we'll worry about that when we're welding there is some gouging left over from where we cut into it and we cut the tabs off of it and there's also some gouging in some of these areas where it's a little bit like an undercut from the actual weld that the factory laid down on it so if we want a nice smooth tube we'll have to go in there and chase those out and grind it smooth again now before we actually get to measuring and cutting this tube down we're gonna go in and prep another section of it which is actually the actual tubes to the housing itself now when it comes to narrowing the 8.8 there are typically two methods that people use one of them involves - cutting out all of these plugs in the axle housing or the differential housing cutting the tube down throwing it back in there realigning it and welding these tubes back up again or at least putting these plugs back through that's a very daunting task I've done it before and I don't recommend that anybody kind of chases it that way unless you are just absolutely gung-ho about doing it there is a simpler method and that's the one that we're gonna do which involves cutting this tube a section out of it welding it back together after realigning it and it becomes shorter it's pretty simple so since we are going to rely upon this method of actually sectioning this left-side tube here we're gonna actually strengthen this housing because in some instances racing off-road etc these plug welds here can actually break which causes the axle tube to spin inside of it so what we want to do is actually weld the tube to the housing itself that's since this is regular mild steel and this is cast there's something that we really got to do and that is clean it exceptionally well before we go welding it that's what we're gonna get on right now [Music] now if you look closely into one of these things you'll actually see that there's a bit of a gap that sits between the actual differential housing and the axle tube itself but all you really need to do to get this cleaned out of here is just grab ahold of a really good heavy knotted wire wheel they dig it in there and make sure it's bright and shiny as soon as you're finished that's it [Music] all right tubes are prepped housing is prepped one last little squirt of acetone here chase out any kind of extra particulates grinding dust anything that might wedge itself in between this housing because there is a bit of a gap and that's something that we really need to take care of here make sure it's nice and clean and prepped and ready to roll now this is pretty much set we are ready to actually chop this tube down after I get me and this workstation cleaned up because this is a complete disaster okay I feel much much better now feels like I can work now I'll be honest with you and we still have more cutting more grinding more everything else like that to do but I'm a little bit tired of it at this moment so I'm gonna switch it up and I'm gonna do some welding just to kind of uh I don't know take a break from all the cut and grind work I mean that's the that's annoying now one thing we should mention real quick though is if you are unable to TIG weld or if you are gonna leave a fat weld on here something like from a MIG welder or maybe even a stick welder or anything like that if you are not able to keep this lip when you are finished you should probably wait to do this step either way we're going to tackle welding these axle tubes up to the axle or differential housing now notice we have two dissimilar metals here we have regular carbon mild steel if you will and we have something that has cast cast iron cast steel cast whatever you want to call it we don't really know exactly what it is now we can grind in spark test or we can Google a bunch and all the rest of that stuff but fourteen times I have done this rear diff and I found only one filler metal when it comes to TIG welding that has successfully welded these two together without ever cracking and that is 309 stainless filler rod sounds a little weird or counterintuitive to you know because you're welding mild Steel's whatever but 309 is one of the best things I found too well these two dissimilar metals together and hold so if you disagree with my choice to fill a rod that's fine use whatever it is in your arsenal that you feel is best whether it be a stick electrode different MIG wire different TIG wire special alloy content filler construction composition whatever the case is use whatever it is that works best for you at the end of the day technically there is no right or wrong as long as the result is and if the result is a fully welded piece that is not cracked that's what we want that's correct so moving on here we don't have a whole lot of worry about distortion on this one from the factory or at least in the factory form it takes several thousand pounds to actually press this tube inside of this axle housing and we have three plug welds that are triangulated so we don't have to worry too much about distortion as it pulling one way or the other but we do have to remember that we are pumping a bunch of heat into this steel tube and into this actual housing right here so we have to kind of be careful with that one to help minimize distortion or the potential for distortion we're going to tack them in quadrants and we're going to go from 12 o'clock then 6 o'clock 3 o'clock then 9 o'clock after those are on there we're going to weld in quadrants so we'll go since I'm right-handed on this one we'll go from 3 o'clock to 12 o'clock then we'll go in 9 o'clock to 6 o'clock and then we'll oppose them each time that we go around there all the way around I'm gonna do that on both sides [Music] okay you know what I think I think that nice little welding break to get these axle tubes up to this housing was not nearly long enough because now we have no choice but to give back out of this left-side axle and start chopping it all apart now very important here do not skip through this episode make sure you are paying attention these measurements these cuts that spit up is crucial to ensuring that this axle housing or this axle tube actually stays straight and goes down the road without cooking bearings every mile so make sure that you're paying attention do not skip through this episode let's get on it now one of the most unique characteristics of the 48.8 is that one axle tube on the left side is actually longer than the axle tube on the right side which means if we measure the two of them calculate the difference we can subtract of that difference out of the left side tube weld it back together and then stick an extra right side axle into this side thus making the entire thing more narrow and fitting into more vehicles with that same bullet proof awesomeness and versatility and ease of fixing and repairing and being cheap and all the rest of that good stuff that I mention before but either way what we need to do is find two reference points that are exactly the same on each side this is what I typically choose to use is the outside edge of this differential housing and the outside edge of the mounting surface for the rear caliper and the brake shoe assembly and backing plate and all the rest that gets tough the reason I choose the outside edge as opposed to the inside edge is the outside edge is machined flat it is nice and even has a good crisp sharp edge on it so that means that that reference point when we measure across here to here the same on both sides we're going to get very close accurate measurements now this is the point where you want to be extremely picky and honest about what you read because the tape measure or whatever measurement device you use does not lie your eyes and brain do so place it on the inside measure to the outside edge here I have 17 and 3/8 of an inch so I'm going to go to the end the opposite side there I also have 17 and 3/8 of an inch let's try the top also 17 and 3/8 now if we want to flip this up here measure out the bottom side also 17 and 3/8 of an inch now we'll go to this side measure out the top just like we're dead on at 20 and a quarter back side also 20 in a corner inside also 20 and 1/4 then flip it up and make sure that this is also true for the bottom side also 20 and 1/4 so if we take 20 and 1/4 and we subtract 17 and three-eighths of an inch we get 2 and 7/8 of an inch difference so 2 and 7/8 of an inch needs to come out of this axle housing so we can weld it back together pretty simple now let's identify the area that we need to cut out of here now right off the get-go we can look at this and we know that the axle actually tapers down from three and a quarter inch OD down to whatever this is probably three-inch right on the nose or somewhere in that area so we definitely cannot work with anything from here out not gonna happen no cutting and welding there over here we have our axle or our brake hardline tab right here we have our vent tube and over here we might not have enough space to actually weld all this back together not to mention I don't want to have a whole lot of heat concentrated in this area and not to mention if we have all of our weight of the vehicle or everything focused on the outside of it the stress load increases on the inside of it meaning it's basically going to want to put a lot more work onto the inside of the tube here where that weld would be so this area I'm not going to use that anything inside of here not going to use that that means that we have everything inside between here and here now this is where it gets kind of clever or I get a little bit picky about this one you'll have to pretty much know or anticipate where the axle is going to sit or the components that you're going to use is going to sit now if you're gonna use something like a leaf spring rear end or something like that remember that the u-bolts will most likely be coming up and over this so you want to anticipate or measure your chassis before you actually cut this to make sure that you don't put a u-bolt directly on a weld or something like that that's gonna cause more pressure and stresses on it you definitely do not want to have anything down on this you can actually place it between the u-bolts or maybe on the outside or close to the inside of it or somewhere in that general area that's where you want it and you also if in this case this car is going to get a four-link when we stuff it into the chassis that we're using it for so we want to make sure that we don't have our welds and everything else landing right on that zone we can have it in between we can have a little more to the outside we can have a little more to the inside or where that bracket is now I've already measured that one out and we're not going to get too far into it because it'll it'll probably be a little bit more confusing than it has to be and this video is supposed to be very simplified so in this section right inside of here I'm gonna take some measurements real quick and figure out exactly where I want to place my weld and then we'll just get onto cutting it out and getting it all set up now after very careful consideration I decided to start my cut or the section where it's actually the weld is going to be located is that 9 inches on the measure around this tube in every single section very carefully measure out 9 inches and put just a little tiny mark on it go all the way around the tube as soon as I move this Jack's Dan so I don't remove the paint I just lay down on there so again working my way all the way around the tube from the inside of that axle housing right on that edge shouldn't we make a mark nice and even on each side [Music] now once you have your cut lines actually marked out use some masking tape to create a visual edge for those cut lines sure that it lines up nice and straight each edge from where you started and where you finished needs to be exactly the same now grab a hold of a ruler or something with a better scale on it so you can more accurately measure measure your cut distance in this case it's 2 and 7/8 of an inch make a mark all the way around that to make as many marks as you need for a good visual reference [Music] go ahead grab a hold of masking tape but once again the exact same thing make sure that all of your lines and all of your references line up a right at the edge of that visual reference which is the masking tape now if you're a little bit over either one of these lines that's really okay and the reason why is because if we remember the golden rule of metal we can always take metal away but we can't necessarily always put it back on so with that in mind if you're a little more on the inside or anything like that you should be fine but if you're past this point or past these edges you may be in some trouble so make sure that you cut a little bit more on the inside and a little less focus toward the edge there because we can always grind it out to make sure that we're sitting right where we need to be I'm gonna take a measurement again across this tape surface just to make sure that we're not way off or way over or anything like that so far everything is lining up right where it needs to be there's nothing that's standing out here and screaming at me saying that uh I need to take it off and redo it but in the event that something is not lining up right or you have some significant difference in your measurements take it off we measure redo it be picky because if you screw this up you could just you know scrap the entire thing so make sure that you're very very picky about your measurements go over at two or three times if you have to make sure there's nothing wrong with doing that I'm gonna flip it up here and I'm gonna measure the other side just to make sure everything's looking good all right we're ready to start cutting now to make this a little bit easier to follow we've divided it into two separate episodes now to see part two where we actually cut the tube down stick it all back together click or right there it'll take you straight over we'll see you there you

Channel: The Fabrication Series

Views: 617,436

Rating: 4.7609019 out of 5

Keywords: Narrowed rear end, narrow diff, ford 8.8, ford rear narrow, narrow ford axle, 8.8 narrow, narrow 8.8, narrow a ford, ford axle, DIY narrowing, how to narrow an axle, the fabricator, the fabrication series, TFS, Build Blogs, The fabricator series, #getstrong, Season 4, Explorer 8.8, Narrow Explorer rear end

Id: mayYpK_aPgM

Length: 23min 3sec (1383 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 26 2018