I think my 8 ¾ housing is toast.

flyfish said
I put CalTracs on my car a few weeks back, took it to the track and ran it. When I got the car home I was looking it over and my pinion angle had changedit was 3° down, now it is 2° up. I checked the spring perches and it looks like they have moved. The passenger side spring perch has actually dented in the axle tube quite a bitand that axle is now leaking from the end of the housing (by the wheel).

So, is the housing toast, or is this something that I could fix? Or maybe a better question would be, should I just switch to a dana since this one is breaking, before there are no good parts of the 8 ¾ to sell?

FWIW, this is behind a 540 hp small block, foot break car, 3200#s.

8.75s have the same size axle tubes as a Dana. Same thing will happen. A back brace will keep you from twisting the tube in the banjo. There are cars out there with a lot more hp than you running these rears. When you weld a housing (when relocating the perches) you weaken the metal around the area. Also the metal tolerances vary between axle housings. When switching to a cal trac you are putting stress on the perches that used to be taken up by the pinion snubber. So reinforcement of the perch is necessary. Plating the perch will make it better, also buying a MO875 is a good cost alternative and will be much stronger and cheaper than a D60.