8.25 setup, any ideas?

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72BlueSwinger

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I had posted this in another thread, but decided to start a new one.

I used a Suregrip out of a Dakota instead of an older A-body. The obvious difference is the carrier bearing size, but the Dakota has about 1/8 inch more adjustment side to side than an abody. Here are some pics, to see where I clearanced the housing for more adjustment, also second pic showing the best pattern I can get and third pic is what the wear pattern LOOKED like when it was set up correctly. I have very little backlash, just a tic-toc, and it feels very minute.
After checking the Aubrun website, you DO have to clearance the housing the same place I did, but the Sg units have the same part number, so there's no reason why my SG won't work. BTW this pattern was achieved with the stock shim under the bearing cup and a .027 shim between the pinion gear and bearing. What do ya'll think? Any Ideas?

PIC-0043.jpg


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Sorry but there's just too much flash to tell anything. Take a picture of it with no flash. Just background lights. That might work better. Also take a picture of the drive side. Your just showing the coast side.
 
I'll try to get one tomorrow, I took those with my cell, cause its all I had handy. My garage is a few blocks away from my house.
 
SO, I'm going to try to add some more pinion shim. I'm going to go from .027 to about .040 and see where that is, and adjust from there. Also, what benefit is there in using a solid spacer instead of a crush sleeve? I have to order my pinion shims online, and the place also offers solid spacers, so I'm trying to make up my mind before I order, and just get it all at once.
 
my dad works for dana so he had some friends at work make me hundreds of shims and a solid spacer. i put the solid spacer in so i would remove the crush sleeve so you dont have to worry about being able to crush the sleeve. so all we had to do is torque the pinion nut and we were done.
 
I always switch stuff to solid spacers. Much easier to deal with and if you ever need to take the yoke off you don't have to worry about messing up the crush sleeve.
 
gears, bearings, oil, sg, all add up but im not goin crazy with the motor so this will be strong enough for me. still cheaper than a center section for an 8 3/4 tho
 
IF you can even find an 8.75, and then IF its big bolt pattern. I'm not even sure you can get them BBP, and since they're so hard to find, don't care, lol. If I ever have to have one, I'll spend the jack to buy all new stuff and won't worry about it. Or just go Dana 60. BTW, I'll only be about $400 into my 8.25, but everything isn't spanking new, but still in good shape. It should be fine for my 200 miles a year or so it might be driven. Heck, even 1k miles, with the mild 318 should not be a problem.
 
8-1/4's are plenty strong for a mild 318 in an A-body and $400 is nothing compared to an 8-3/4. I spent $800 on rebuilding my 8-3/4 and the only reason it was that cheap was I found some new parts guys sold cheaper than new prices. It would have been close to a $1000 if I hadn't found the deals.
 
Like fishy, i cant see the grease line as well. What grease are you using? I use white lith grease or the regular yellow stuff. If the line you drew is the edge of your pattern you need to be more in the center of the tooth with it. You will need to work with both adjustments to achieve the correct pattern. $400 is cheap for cost. Looks like your coming along nicely.
Small Block
 
I had no idea people thought these 8-1/4" rears were worth putting so much into.
I just use salvage yard parts so it costs aboutr the same to "build" a rear whether it's a an 8-1/4 or an 8-3/4. The only reason I have $400.00 into any of my A-body 8-3/4" rears is because I choose to purchase the large bolt pattern aftermarket axles for one of them instead of having the factory ones re-drilled for ~$75.00. Otherwise they are just factory parts (bearings & 3.55-3.91 ring & pinions included) that came out of various parts cars/trucks. Two of the three were open differentials so they recieved sure-grip center chunks from other parts cars/trucks.

I have almost $350.00 into my 8-1/4" sure grip A-body rear and that includes the 1995 Jeep Cherokee rear disc brake set-up on it. I thought I was was being foolish spending that kind of money on that rear end when I could have built an 8-3/4" for the same cost. I just didn't see the need to have the extra heft from the 8-3/4" rear under my slant six Duster.

8-1/4 parts can be had easily/cheap in salvage yards because of all the Vans/Dakotas/cars they were used in. There is a lot of sure grip units lying around in salvage yards and nice ones sell on eBay for $100.00 regulary with new/NOS ones only fetching ~$150.00.
not too mention check your local classified ads/Craigslist and ask around. You'll be amazed at what is still out there.
 
"8-1/4 parts can be had easily/cheap in salvage yards because of all the Vans/Dakotas/cars they were used in. There is a lot of sure grip units lying around in salvage yards and nice ones sell on eBay for $100.00 regulary with new/NOS ones only fetching ~$150.00.
not too mention check your local classified ads/Craigslist and ask around. You'll be amazed at what is still out there."


You act like nobody looks around for this stuff. Like I said, in my area it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to find mopar parts, especially 8.75 rears. I don't even know where the nearest 8.25 rear is. I have checked every junkyard I know of within about 50 miles. Either you have to rummage through acres of cars because "well, we might have something, but you'd have to bring your jack so you can get the car out of the mud and look for yourself, cause I don't know" or they have to have it shipped in from somewhere else. The nearest u-pull-it JY wants about $350 -$450 for an 8.25 rear. I have been looking for a 8.25 out of a Jeep Grand Cherokee for almost a year now, NOTHING. no Dana 44s, no 8.25s, no 8.75s, almost no Dana 60s, and when you do find a Dana 60, its sky-high. One dude is selling a Dana 60 local, with 4.56s and a spool for $1600. Can you believe that?

The cheapest suregrip or posi unit or whatever you wanna call it for the 8.25 on ebay right now is $250. That is probably the biggest cost on redoing a rearend, I know it was on mine. Again, nothing local. If they don't have the axle, they don't have the Suregrip unit. Also, I'm not paying someone $250 or even $150 to set up my gears. $150 is the cheapest price I can find - and they are torch happy, and like to "polish the pinion bearing, so it will come back off the pinion if we need it to." That doesn't sound right to me. Anyway....

Your pricing for those rearends on ebay may be accurate, but that doesn't include shipping costs. At any rate, in my area, if people DO have mopar parts, they hoard them instead of selling. I've heard of ppl who have garages full of mopar stuff that won't even talk about it or show anyone, much less sell it.

You should give us all directions to the junkyards that are selling these parts so cheap, because I'm sure almost everyone on this site would like to spend only $400 for an 8.75 rear end. I know I would have jumped on a BBP 8.75 rear axle for that price. Not only that, but you could make a killing buying them out of the junkyard, assembling them, and then selling them on FABO.
 
Nobody is gonna come up here looking for the stuff.
Heck when I sell something half the time they don't come up here to look at it or get it! LOL
In all seriousness if anyone is in the area I'll gladly show them how I do it.
Maybe I just know the right people, maybe it's dumb luck, or maybe it's because I am patient and wait for the right deals to come along instead of jumping on the first, second or third deals to pass by.
I got a few limited slip 8-3/4" center chucks out of mid 70's Dodge pickups and they usually have 3.55-3.91 gears too!
We do all of our own work as well so I can see labor being an added expense.
Look at my eBay feedback / recently purchased items on eBay I just purchased a brand new limited slip 8-1/4" diff for $195.00 shipped and the same seller sold a few more for $145.00 + shipping. It got here and had some surface rust on it so I sent it back and decided to just use a good used unit that I paid $75.00 for. If you contact him I'm sure he'll sell you the one I sent back for ~$140.00. It was usable, I just couldn't see paying that when I can just get a good used unit at half that price.
I'm glad I went this route because the other $125.00 almost completely paid for my rear disc brake conversion that I bought from a salvage yard down in Kentucky (found it on www.Car-part.com) I just paid the additional $25.00 for shipping. I bought the 3.55:1 ring & pinion gears (and good pinion bearing) for $90.00 shipped off eBay. The differential had good bearings on it so the only other expense was for some lube & additive.

This hobby is expensive, no doubt.
However with a little smarts and a lot of patience, searching, and almost no money I have been able to gather quite the amount of cars, engines, transmissions, and other general stuff (most of which came off eBay btw). It just didn't happen overnight.
I think anyone can find what they are looking for in their price range if they look hard enough.

Maybe I should start being a middleman connecting buyer with the parts they want for a small fee...
 
look up north where we use salt and cars rot out around their drive trains. around here you can't throw a dead cat without hitting an 8 1/4. i'll trade you all the rear ends you want for a solid body!
 
well that's our point, by the time we "look up north" to buy our parts, either we have to find an AD, or we have to travel. If you travel or have parts shipped, the parts wind up costing more $$$. AT any rate, I don't think its a bad deal to go from a worn out 2.45 open carrier rearend, to an all-new bearings and seals, good used 3.55 + suregrip, with fresh paint and some good oil for about $400, considering the used parts availability. If I had good cheap parts laying everywhere and was too lazy to get them, then yeah, $400 is high, but when you have spent a good deal of time looking around at places that don't require sky-high shipping, and you can't find anything, and your axle NEEDS rebuilding, then $400 isn't too shabby.

Also, I just don't have the time to go crawling around junkyards that are 50+ miles away on some backroad nobody has heard of. I have too many other demands on my time to waste chasing parts that may or may not be there, and around here, its useless to call on the phone, because nobody knows anything - "You'll have to come and look for yourself." Makes me sick. If I wanted to "come look for myself" then I wouldn't have called WOULD I? lol.

If I can ever get the guy to get me a pic of the stuff, and quote me a shipping price, I'm going to buy his Grand Cherokee rear disc brakes for about $50 + shipping, and to me, that is not bad. NO JY around here has any Jeep Cherokees, much less GCs with disc rears. IF they do, they want $450 for the rear axle (a Dana 35 - useless to me except for the brakes.) THEN I'll spend the money on new e-brake parts, new drilled and slotted rotors, new or rebuilt calipers, and new ceramic pads BEFORE they ever get put on - just because I want to.

My pinion shims should be here monday at the latest. hopefully I can get that baby set up properly next week.
 
I'm in the same boat here. No junkyards within 40 miles of me and if they do have stuff it costs a minimum of $400 for even a 8-1/4. I apparently need to be up north to get some of them cheap parts cause even a worn out sure-grip unit (not the whole 3rd member) costs $150-200. You can't touch a good 8-3/4 3rd member pig for less than $350 if it is a sure-grip and that's a 741 case. A 742 or 489 sure-grip 3rd member will cost you $400-600.

As far as the 8-1/4. They are way under rated by most people. I bought a new 93 Dakota with a 318 mag/518/8-1/4 and started racing it on weekends when it hit 5,000 miles. Had it for 12 yrs. and put over 90,000 miles on it and used it all week long for work pulling trailers as big as 18" car haulers with sometimes a 4,000 lb load on it then raced on the weekend. It ran 14.40's after a few bolt on's hooking pretty decent. Even at 90,000 miles the rearend was still going strong. That said I'm a believer that the 8-1/4 is just fine for lower perf. applications and a great money saving alternative to the 8-3/4.
 
Yes, but swapping centers in the 8-3/4" is so easy/fast once you have several set-ups. It's a hard set-up to beat. Of course not many change their gear ratios much anymore. Heck not many drive their Mopars much anymore.

I can't afford to replace parts, just because I want to. The set of breaks they sent me had all nice calipers, rotors, pads, and the e-brake set-up was inlcuded, although I just discarded the e-brake stuff. I may even still have it if you want it.
It's a great cost effective set-up, and I never have to mess with drums again! Well on the Dart Sport anyways.

Honestly there aren't any real junkyards in my area either. I haver much better luck finding the stuff that is hidding in peoples back yards. Granted I've never found anything really valuable, but lots of diamonds in the rough. "Scouting" with my father & son is my favorite past time.
Admittedly I spend my off time cruising the backroads and talking with anyone I can find that has classic mopar stuff. After all they are the guys that know where everything is hidden.
 
well then i should consider my self lucky cause we have a u pull it within in 20 mins and they have a lot of mopars and jeeps and etc. i got my 3.55's for $30 out of a 96 dakota and they had 4.10's in the jeep next to it.and they re stock every tuesday or thursday. a whole rear is only like $50 housing and all depending on size. sad thing is im not 18 so i cant get in by my self or i would be selling these cheap parts on here.
 
Hey Drunkerthanyou, What kind of solid body do you want? You'll need to gather up about...oh lets say.....20 of those old cheap rears for some trading stock and maybe we'll have what you want then we'll put those rears back into circulation. Got some Dusters and a couple of decent Darts to choose from. You can bring the rears down when you come to pick up the car. Let me know. I'm in West Plains, Mo
Small Block
 
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