Early/late C3 differential housings

69427

69427

The Artist formerly known as Turbo84
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Clinging to my guns and religion in KCMO.
Just curious about an item when interchanging early and late rear end housings. I've got the C3 batwing and iron housing on my '69, but it was a custom build, so I never worried about front/rear spacing/movement of the diff stub axle relative to the trailing arm spindle centerline. My question is, what is the relative difference between the cover gasket surface and the stub axle centerline of the early iron units versus the later aluminum units?

Thanks,
Mike
 
i can measure a 80-82 D44, don't have an earlier one lying around apart from the early dana in my buddies 63 vette
 
Twin_Turbo said:
i can measure a 80-82 D44, don't have an earlier one lying around apart from the early dana in my buddies 63 vette
Click to expand...

Thanks.
I've got a spare iron unit laying around that I can take a measurement on for comparison.

I would assume (I know that's a dangerous thing to do) that the distance from the stub axle C/L to the pinion bracket bolt is the same for both units so that the halfshafts are in the same position in space.
 
No, it's probably not, I'm pretty sure the alu ones have the pinion up closer to the frame when it's all mounted.
 
Yes me too, you are saying that the axle centerline is the same distance to the pinion mount bolt. I think it's different, I'm pretty sure the D44 has the axle centerline and pinion moved forward in respect to the position in the frame vs the earlier setup. As a result the pinion yoke is closer to the frame. The D44 does not have a pinion bracket, the mount is part of the housing.
 
Twin_Turbo said:
Yes me too, you are saying that the axle centerline is the same distance to the pinion mount bolt. I think it's different, I'm pretty sure the D44 has the axle centerline and pinion moved forward in respect to the position in the frame vs the earlier setup. As a result the pinion yoke is closer to the frame. The D44 does not have a pinion bracket, the mount is part of the housing.
Click to expand...

I'm aware of the cast-in bracket on the later housing, but you've got me curious about the axle positioning. I'm hoping there's a decent engineering reason for it, rather than it just came out different, and "we'll just let the u-joints do their angle thing" a bit more.
 
69427 said:
I'm aware of the cast-in bracket on the later housing, but you've got me curious about the axle positioning. I'm hoping there's a decent engineering reason for it, rather than it just came out different, and "we'll just let the u-joints do their angle thing" a bit more.
Click to expand...

The 80-82 camber brackets bolt over the mating flange of the diff and the lid, most likely because that was the strongest solution with the weak aluminum case in respect to the iron one. As a result the camber struts have angled ends and point backwards instead of straight back.

I took a rough measurement, looks like it`s about 11.5 inches.

24c26523ee0388.jpg
 
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