8.8 swap

moparmat2000 said

I can tell you this, the brake line connections on the ford side are SAE, not metric thread. The only metric hardware I found on this axle was the caliper mounting bolts. That it. I cut the old flexable brake line tabs off the axle when I cut everything else off when shortening it. My plan was to mock up the axle housing with my new springs under the car, fit the calipers, and Tee block. Figure out where the rubber flex lines needed to be, tack the brackets back in place, then bend and flare my own new lines from the brass Tee to the brackets where the flex lines end. Also need to mock up parking brake setup. the welded on clip for the RH parking brake cable routing that goes onto the axle tube.

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Good to know on the SAE. I assumed it was all metric like everything else modern. Appreciate you!

For the group, here’s where I’m at. My rear came from ‘98 Mountaineer. The ones local had much lower miles than the explorer. Contrary to some of what I read, same width as the explorers in the yard. Grabbed a spare short axle and slid it in the housing before they rang me up. At home, hacked everything off with the grinder and cut my 2-7/8 with a piper cutter. I went ahead and beveled it down to about an 1/8 and jigged it up. Tonight was welding night and tacked it in 6 spots, slid in the axle and ran 1 inch beads, beveled them back and ran the next bead back into them, jumping around. Almost finished but ran out of wire with about an inch left so I’ll wrap it up tomorrow. Cut is a 42” on center so my perches will straddle the weld.