1969 Convertible V8 Beetle update with pics.....

Alright how about a quick little update on the project.  I hadn't had much time to work on it all winter long, but I picked up the ford 8.8" rear end a few days ago and have been working on tearing it down.

Also you can check out the rest of my project at my V8 Beetle website: http://www.v8beetleresource.com
And I also just started a V8 Beetle forum on my site at http://www.v8beetleresource.com/forum for those of you who might be interested in your own V8 bug project....

It was a halfway nice day so first I pushed the bug outside and got a couple updated shots of it:

Here is the ford 8.8" rear end from a 1997 ford explorer, It has disc brakes, locking diff, 4.10 gear ratio, and I picked it up for $150.  I also go the leaf springs and sway bar with it.  Of course I don't need the leaf springs, maybe I can sell them on craigslist for like $20, and I'm going to stick with the s10 rear sway bar I got because it is the ZQ8 sway bar and much beefier than the explorer sway bar.

Next I cut the U bolts so I could pull off the leaf springs and I also pulled of the sway bar, and then got it up where I could work on it easier.

Just another view:

I'm planning on pulled on the calipers, rotors, brake lines, emergency brakes, backing plates, etc, etc, etc and I'll clean up the rear end, paint it with some master series silver, then probably some roll on bed liner like I'm doing on the frame.

Then I'll put in new bearings and seals, along with new calipers, rotors, lines ,etc....

Here is the ID tag on the rear end.  the 4L10 number is what your looking for, that lets you know its a locking 4.10 rear end, and I believe the 8.8 rear ends on the 1995 explorers and up are all disc brakes.

Here I started tearing down the rear end, I started with the drivers side, I pulled off the caliper and the rotor was falling off.  I figured I got lucky because it can be a real pain to convince them that they want to come off some times.  The passenger side rotor on the other hand was a real pain to get it.  It was really stuck on there, After lots of WD40, hammering and some heat from a torch it came off, but it put up a good fight.

Right now I'm planning on getting the rear end finished then get it under the car.  Then I'll be able to get my drive line angle figured out, make my transmission crossmember, get my engine mounts welded in their final places, etc.  Then I'll be able to move onto the floor of the body that way I can figure out locations for body mounts.  Then after I get the body mounts figured out and welded to the chassis I'll be able to finish sand blasting, and undercoating it, etc....

Next I pulled off the diff. cover and drained the oil in the rear end.  The oil actually looked pretty clean, and there were no big chunks in the oil

After pulling the cover off it is defiantly a 4.10 rear end:

Here you can see that there is just a tad bit of wear on the gears, but nothing major:

Being that this is a C clip rear end to pull out the axle shafts you need to loosen this bolt that holds the pinion shaft in.  Once you slide the pinion shaft out of the way you can push each axle in a little bit and slide off the c clips.  I've herd that it is pretty common for these little bolts to be broken on in these 8.8" rear ends.  Luckly mine wasn't broke, although it was very tight, so I'd recomend using a 6 point socket or box end wrench to break it loose.... I think its 8mm if I remember correctly:

Here are the little C clips that you'll pull out to get the axles loose:

I forgot to take a picture of the axles after I pulled them out, but here they are wrapped up in garbage bags later on...... (SSHHHH don't tell my wife I "borrowed" some of her fancy garbage bags    )

Then I'm left with pretty much just the E-brakes and backing plates to remove:

Here I got the E-brakes removed, on to the backing plates, and then the other side.

I'll be replacing the both wheel seals and bearings, and probably will throw a new pinion seal in also, because it looks like it was leaking just a tad bit.......

I'll post some more pictures when I get time to get back out to the garage again.