8.8 swap

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Ok pix are in order. A buddy of mine and i drove 1.5 hours 1 way to get to where the axle was. I agreed to $300 for it but was not able to go look at it prior, Took about 45 mins to pull it, put the leafs back in place and set the xploders leafs down on a couple of flat cinder block pavers. This way the truck wont fall on anybody. Anyhoo. They said the truck didnt have brakes as well. The rotors are completely ground down paper thin since theres no meat on the pads. Kinda ticks me on the price, because now i gotta shell out for rotors. Yet the rotors turn freely and the calipers arent locked down on the rotors. This tells me the calipers are probably fine, and somebody had probably been just driving it that way for a loooong time. I will need to get 2 rotors, and pads. Rear is a 3L73. I got a lot of questions.

For starters it looks like it has internal shoe brakes for park/emergency brake. I took the cables along with the rear, however anybody have pix of how they adapted their mopar parking brake cables to work?

I grabbed the driveshaft. It was a 4wd model so it has the u joint adaptor on both ends. I will be pulling the u joint adaptors and **** canning the driveshaft I will be keeping the 1 extra as a spare.

What do you all do about the ABS sensor in the pumpkin? Do you just leave it to plug the hole? Or does somebody make a plug for that.

Anybody use the sway bar and track arms from these. I grabbed it all. it can always go in the scrap pile too.

Also the mount brackets and perches all over the axle. Do y'all just cut them all off, and grind the welds flat then start from there? I'm thinking that would be the easiest way.

I am assuming there will be no way to fit this with a pinion snubber either. Sooo whats the deal on that a set of slapper bars? Caltracs?

I am going to get a set of new shock plates. Everythings listed for 3" tube. Do you just waller out 1/8 on each hole to make it fit the xploder 3.25" tube.

Perches. I have a set of mopar performance weld ons for 3" tube. Can these be used or do i need to find a set for the bigger 8.8 tube?

Finally, this is one heavy ******.

Yes lots of questions. I got this thing now i want to use it.

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just checked w rock auto. Xploder rear discs are dirt cheap. Bendix are about $15 each new. It would have cost me $10 each if they had enough meat on em to get them cut. So i am not complaining about the wiped out rotors.
 
moparmat2000 said:
just checked w rock auto. Xploder rear discs are dirt cheap. Bendix are about $15 each new. It would have cost me $10 each if they had enough meat on em to get them cut. So i am not complaining about the wiped out rotors.
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moparmat2000 said:
Ok pix are in order. A buddy of mine and i drove 1.5 hours 1 way to get to where the axle was. I agreed to $300 for it but was not able to go look at it prior, Took about 45 mins to pull it, put the leafs back in place and set the xploders leafs down on a couple of flat cinder block pavers. This way the truck wont fall on anybody. Anyhoo. They said the truck didnt have brakes as well. The rotors are completely ground down paper thin since theres no meat on the pads. Kinda ticks me on the price, because now i gotta shell out for rotors. Yet the rotors turn freely and the calipers arent locked down on the rotors. This tells me the calipers are probably fine, and somebody had probably been just driving it that way for a loooong time. I will need to get 2 rotors, and pads. Rear is a 3L73. I got a lot of questions.

For starters it looks like it has internal shoe brakes for park/emergency brake. I took the cables along with the rear, however anybody have pix of how they adapted their mopar parking brake cables to work?

I grabbed the driveshaft. It was a 4wd model so it has the u joint adaptor on both ends. I will be pulling the u joint adaptors and **** canning the driveshaft I will be keeping the 1 extra as a spare.

What do you all do about the ABS sensor in the pumpkin? Do you just leave it to plug the hole? Or does somebody make a plug for that.

Anybody use the sway bar and track arms from these. I grabbed it all. it can always go in the scrap pile too.

Also the mount brackets and perches all over the axle. Do y'all just cut them all off, and grind the welds flat then start from there? I'm thinking that would be the easiest way.

I am assuming there will be no way to fit this with a pinion snubber either. Sooo whats the deal on that a set of slapper bars? Caltracs?

I am going to get a set of new shock plates. Everythings listed for 3" tube. Do you just waller out 1/8 on each hole to make it fit the xploder 3.25" tube.

Perches. I have a set of mopar performance weld ons for 3" tube. Can these be used or do i need to find a set for the bigger 8.8 tube?

Finally, this is one heavy ******.

Yes lots of questions. I got this thing now i want to use it.

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Click to expand...

Yeah you can leave the sensor in there, mines in with no issues!

I have not hooked up my brake as I am going to use an electronic E-Brake system. From what I’ve read it’s not to Big a deal to make it work...just a lot of adjusting involved.

All the original Ford perches will have to go. You can use 3” perches from Mopar or any aftermarket. I got mine from speedway motors for dirt cheap.

You can drill out the plates...but I just compressed my U-bolts enough to go in and torqued down to fact specs with no issues.

I didn’t use the sway bar as of right now still deciding if I want it...if I do go with it...Firm Feel and Hellwig make the kits for it.

I’m looking at a way to fab an adjustable snubber to the Ford pumpkin...it’s gonna have to be adjustable because of the crazy Ford design!!!

Best of luck with your new project!!!
 
jrlegacy23 said:
Factory mopar cable hooks right up to the ford E brake
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Anybody have a pic of how they hooked up their mopar cables to the ford E brake. Do you use the ford rear cables and the mopar front cable, or modify the lever at the backing plate to take the mopar cables. Good pix would help a lot.
 
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Apparently it's regularly used when doing transmission swaps
 
In short (no pun intended!!) if the driveshaft is a little short after the install, it would be cheaper to use this spacer then getting a driveshaft made.
There are post such as no. 49 that speaks of moving the rear back 1in. .......
I just felt that it may help some who are converting to a 8.8.

This particular adapter is aimed at mustang guys who do a transmission conversion and the driveshaft comes up 11/16 short. There are other spacers as well.

FWIW I have a 87 dakota 4wd, stock suspension. I pulled the 8.25 rear and put a 8.8 under it. For some reason, my driveshaft is out of the transfer case by 2&3/8 in. with the truck setting on its wheels. Part of it is where I converted from a NV2500 to a NV3500 transmission. The bigger transmission is actually 3/4 in shorter. So that is part of my problem.

I have received a lot of good information from this thread, as well as this forum, especially the magnum section!!
Thanks to everyone who post up what they have found and their experiences....

Again, in short, the reason I post this? To help out anyone who may have a slightly short driveshaft and save them the money of a new driveshaft.
 
Badart said:
Looking good. You should be able to find a yoke that will work. These things came in about a million mustangs.

I did a 9" conversion on my dart and used the 8.8 disc brakes from an exploder and was actually able to use the parking brakes and tie them into the darts cable. Works great.
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I know badart posted this in 2010, if your still lurking around on here, Can you describe how, and show pix of how you hooked up the parking brakes from the exploder setup to the mopar setup?
 
moparmat2000 said:
I know badart posted this in 2010, if your still lurking around on here, Can you describe how, and show pix of how you hooked up the parking brakes from the exploder setup to the mopar setup?
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I used 2 of the explorer short cables. I put 2 angle tabs to mount the ends of the new cables and I made a new forward cable. I think my forward cable didn't work out so well, used regular hardware store cables must strech because the parking brake sucks.
I also put an 8.8 in my Wrangler and the parking brake sucks on that also.
 
Ok, thanks. I have a spare set of barracuda rear cables. I was going to try to adapt those to work with the explorer shoe brakes.

I'm still on the fence about this one, but heres a thought, I'm wondering if anybody gave a thought to using the ford rotor, but **** canning the stock exploder emergency shoe brake setup altogether, and remounting the axle and rotor with out it, then using a caliper with integral park brake cable crank. Theres some GM types out there set up with integral parking E brake w the caliper.

They can be mounted with weld on metric brackets that speedway and others sell. Looks like 85 eldorado calipers might do the trick. If the exploder solid rear rotor isnt thick enough you could possibly use front exploder vented rotors on the back, or if that rotor is too thick, you could make spacers for behind the brake pads to shim them out. 85 eldo was smallish FWD caddy, i'm betting its rear rotors were non vented like the explodet ones and shimming may not be necessary.

The cable mounting brackets and linkage look a bit more user friendly for a mopar parking brake cable.

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Heres a complete kit with vented rotors drilled for GM and Mopar pattern. A bit pricey if you wanted to piece it together cheaper. But its out there

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Found these park brake adaptors for exploder parking brakes on the net. One set looks homemade.

The store bought ones are Lokar pn# EC-81FC.

Not sure how welk these would adapt stock drum cables to exploder rear or not.

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How much. How does it bolt up. I shortened my exploder and used the 8 3/4 hangers/shock plates
 
I had a buddy weld the exploder end of the e brake to the stock 71/4 cables. Time will tell if it holds up.
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For those that had front disc and rear drum cars, have you done anything different when adding the disc to the rear? ie. change combination valve, master cyl. etc?
 
I added an adjustable proportioning valve on the rear lines and kept my original hooked up to the front brakes.
 
I have heard of people upgrading to a diplomat two bolt master 1&1/32" bore, and running a stock proportioning valve with the front disc / rear drum setup. I am years away from installing this in the 69 notch, but price was right, and it was there, so i nabbed it before the source starts to dry up.
 
What I have is not an A body, its a 87 Dakota.
If posting here is out of line, please tell me and I will delete the post.
I pulled the 8.25 with 10in drum brakes out and put a 2000-01 explorer 8.8 rear in the truck.
Everything seems to be working well.
The brake pedal is up and seems to be very solid.
On dry roads the truck seems to stop well. In fact, it seems better then with the drums.
The other day, I took it out on a wet road, and wanted to see how easy it would lock up and slide.
It was hard to even get the truck to slide on a wet road.
In my case, I dont believe I am getting enough pressure to the rear.
The only thing I see that would cause that is the factory proportioning valve.
The front calipers use a piston that is 2.36 in. and the explorer rear uses a piston that is 1.89 in.
So if anything, with a smaller piston on the rear, I would have suspected it would lock up much quicker then the front.
The brakes are power assist and the master cylinder is .944 in bore.
Any input would be appreciated.

And again, if this post is out of line, I would be glad to delete.
 
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