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From: Daven Anderson
email: [email protected]
Date: July 27, 2000
Time: 02:55:12
I'm using a '70 Sport Fury rearend in my '60 Ply. wagon,and it fits 'like a glove'. The width is exactly right as is. The 65-73 C-body rearends all have parking brake mechanisms built into the rear drum assemblies. You can modify the cables so that the original parking brake lever will acutate the service brakes,as on my car. This will allow you to dispense with the driveshaft parking brake assembly entirely,saving weight and allowing use of different transmissions. (Note that removing the driveshaft parking brake would require a longer driveshaft) Of course if you parked on hills in San Francisco,you could keep the original brake,add a standard hand-pull lever to acutate the later rear's service brakes and have TWO independent parking brakes! Since you plan to change the engine and tranny anyway,YES change to this style rearend! No,you can't convert the 57-61 brakes to parking brakes,no provision was made in the drum mechanisms for parking brakes! The 57-61 rears are very strong and would take lots of power,you CAN change them to later drums and later (65-68) '742' axle shafts and get rid of both of those problems,but most of the time it's cheaper and easier to buy a rearend from a later C-body than to swap the original's drums and axle shafts. Also Sure-Grip (limited slip) differentials are a little more common on later cars. My '70 rearend has Sure-Grip. Yes,you can change an original rearend to a Sure-Grip third member. Buying the complete '70 rearend cost 1/2 to 1/3 the cost of fitting an original rearend with later drums,axle shafts and a Sure-Grip 3rd member. Best of all,C-body rearends were not run as hard as B-body rearends (generally speaking),being that C-bodies were not favored by the musclecar set and 99.9% had automatics. So they cost less due to less demand AND are in better shape to boot! This is the way to go,and I'm very pleased with mine. P.S. On my '61 Fury with the original rearend,that IS changed to later (non-tapered) axle shafts; this is simply a good idea to do for any Forward Look car that is driven more than 'on and off a trailer' DAVEN
