9 inch rear with stock disc brakes...???

[troy54gmc]

Hey Raw67 did the 73 lincoln mark 4 come with factory disc brakes? and did you keep the same gears in it or upgrade?

[Tri5Nerd]

Originally Posted by troy54gmc

Hey Raw67 did the 73 lincoln mark 4 come with factory disc brakes? and did you keep the same gears in it or upgrade?

Yes, they do, I got mine from a mark 4. it has disc brakes. If you can find one it's will be 62" wide.

Raw, How did you do the emergency brake setup?


Tri5

[rawraw67]

Tri5Nerd I have not got the e-brake hook up yet,I have two short left side cables and will try to hook them up, when I fab up some kind of bracket I will just hook it to the front cable.How about you? what did have you come up with ?

[Tri5Nerd]

Originally Posted by rawraw67

Tri5Nerd I have not got the e-brake hook up yet,I have two short left side cables and will try to hook them up, when I fab up some kind of bracket I will just hook it to the front cable.How about you? what did have you come up with ?

I got some cables from a bronco II and will try to adapt them when I get to that point.
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[michaelnolimit]

90's ford Explorer has disc brakes and an internal drum style e-brake. Very nice setup. The versi stuff works pretty good but I don't like the way you have to adjust the e brake. To adjust the e brake you cruise at 20-30 miles an hour In Reverse and pull the e-brake several times. The caliper has this weird ratchet mechanism inside that requires this In reverse style of adjustment. Ive had luck with the versi rears but have had quite a few headaches as well. I now use the ford explorer stuff.

[troy54gmc]

Hey Mike. its weird that you mention this cause i just went to the junkyard last week and purchased a 95 ford explorer rearend. I researched and found out that the 95-01 explorers came with 8.8 rearends with disc brakes. I picked mine up for just over $100 bucks and its a 8.8 with disc brakes 3.73 gears with locker and 31 spline axles and sway bar. it also came with a really cool 2 into one e-brake cable system that should be easy to hook up to a factory e-brake. the only thing i dont like about it is the c-clips that hold the axles in the housing. ive heard this is the weak link and if they brake you lose the axle and wheel. i was reading something about a way to weld these some how to solve this problem??? does anyone know about this???

[michaelnolimit]

Thats a pretty good deal on the housing. I also like the 8.8 inch housing because it weighs less than the 9 inch. Less unsprung weight the suspension has to control. As far as the axle retainers Ive never seen one let go. Not saying it hasnt but its pretty rare. You would have to have some serious horespower issues to snap the four bolts that hold the retaining plate to the housing. I feel better about this setup than your average 10 or 12 bolt gm. They have little c clips that slide in to a groove on the end of the axle. They dont even bolt in. We built a truck about 6-7 years ago called the Princess and it has the ford explorer style brakes with the axle retaining plates. The truck has over 1200 horespower. The customer still drives it today and has never experienced any problems keeping the axles in place. You could get a thicker retainer plate, but I wouldnt waste my time if your under 1,000 horespower.

[crakarjax]

Originally Posted by troy54gmc

Hey Mike. its weird that you mention this cause i just went to the junkyard last week and purchased a 95 ford explorer rearend. I researched and found out that the 95-01 explorers came with 8.8 rearends with disc brakes.

Troy, where did you find that info? I can't really find a compiled source of rearend specs anywhere. Do you know how wide that 95-01 explorer rear is flange to flange? My '97 Grand Marquis has the same disc brake setup with the internal drum e-brake, I'll take a tape measure to is to see how it stacks up. How can I identify what ring size and spline count it has without opening it up?

... I did some digging and it looks like the crown vic/grand marquis does have an 8.8 but a low gear ratio and probably not limited slip.