Topic: question about swapping full width axles

[mcg_916]

is it possible to cut off the spring perches(on the axle) and move them towards the center more to fit the toyota spring location? i don't see why people would use a wider spring hanger and offset shackles if moving the spring perches is cheaper and not much harder to do so i think i am missing something important
and also, a friend of mine has a ford 9" rear axle that he will give me but he told me that all ford rear diffs are offset? if this is true how are some people using them? i apologize if these are dumb questions, im a noob

[Dooner]

Your right, moving spring perches would be much easier than relocating shackles and hangers. The problem with some front axles is that there isnt room to move the perch inward due to the diff being in the way. This means you either outboard your shackles and hangers or build your perches so one of them is up onto the side of your diff housing. I thought Ford 9" rear ends were centered, but with 5 lug axles, meaning you'd need custom axles or wheel adapters to match up to Toyota pattern.

[freds40]

On the front axles, the passenger side spring perch is cast as part of the center chunk. If you want to keep the stock width of the Toy, you need to cut down the driver side (long side) roughly 4-4.5" and then you can add the driver perch to gain the proper spring mount width.

On the 9", the center chunk is offset to compensate for the pinion favoring the passenger side. To line the pinion up with a centered tranny/t-case output, the chunk is offset. Shouldn't affect you and is how it was set up from the factory. If you want to have a centered third, you can cut down the driver side tube so that another passenger side shaft will fit in it's place. IIRC this will narrow the axle 3 or 4". It's an old hot rodders trick to narrow a 9" for cheap.