Even when Flatheads dominated in the early days of hot rodding, the side effects of a hopped-up engine meant that dealing with stripped ring-and-pinion gears, broken axles, and hubs with sheared keys was almost guaranteed. Things only worsened in the early ’50s as overhead valve V-8s pushed the Flathead Ford and other early engines aside. The cure for rearend woes was often those wide and heavy assemblies found under Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs (both were out of production after 1964) until Ford unknowingly came to the rescue. Since its introduction, Ford’s 9-inch rearend has become the preferred performance axle assembly for modified vehicles.
Produced from 1957-86, the Ford 9-inch is Hotchkiss style, which is to say the case containing the third member with the ring-and-pinion assembly is removable as a unit, making…
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Modern Rodding (Digital) - 1 Issue, Volume 5, Issue 47 - August 2024