gregpurcell
Greg Purcell
You know? There was an earlier post about swapping the entire rear (drum to drum) to a 7 1/4. I didn't give that much credence, but I started thinking about it while I was driving down the road! You would ACTUALLY want to get an 8 1/4. It's about as cheap as a 7 1/4 and a lot stronger. It would hold up to any normal abuse you might give it. Also an 8 1/4 has the same spring plates and U bolt sizes as the 8 3/4. Assuming that you bought NEW u bolts and kept them well greased, they could immediately be zipped off with an impact gun and the spring plates could stay on the shocks and be pulled out of the way. The brake lines would have to be broken loose and the system bled but you could do that at the "t" fitting so it's one connection. You might need a different driveshaft, but if you had both the swap would be easy. All that's left is the parking brake cables and if you were running an automatic trans, you might not even need them. With new clips, that still should be a quick job. What am I forgetting? I'm thinking less than an hour for the swap?
