differential narrowing jig

grimreaper said

Well, I actually ordered mine directly from Leadmine Products with a phone call several years ago, but he sells them on Ebay now. I bought the 1-1/4 rod from the local steel supplier. I know the guy there and asked him to give me a call when someone else wanted a partial stick.
I used to weld 'em up with no jig, similar to what Rusty describes, and never had one not run but the jig makes it easy to ensure all is good.

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I agree with this. You can definitely shorten the housings without the jig kit. But if you do it the way RRR suggests (which is fine!) you will have to disassemble and reassemble everything several times in the whole mock up/measuring/welding/set up stages. If you're going to shorten one housing and be done with it that's probably the way to go. But if you envision yourself shortening multiple housings you may want to invest in a jig. It makes the whole process shorter, all you deal with is the bare housing and the jig kit and there's no need to assemble and disassemble everything to get it done. The jig just saves time and makes things easier.

I bought a leadmine kit awhile back because they had a discount or something and I have several C body and truck 8 3/4 housings from the local yard that I may shorten for various projects. Still have to source the cold rolled bar but I can do that anytime. The Mittler Bros. kit is nice, but dang that's a lot of money.