Need Advice

mkbrower

Registered User
I am restoring my 95 SC and have a few questions. The car I'm restoring was a nothern car and is in very good condition as far as rust is concern. There are a few items that are rusted too much for restoring. The drive shaft, rear diff. half ahafts and subframe.

I have a 94 4.6 LX and was wondering if the parts from this car will transfer to my 95 SC. I know the differentials are different internally, but was wondering if I can rebuild the LX diff with the SC parts.

Any help will be appreciated!

Mark
 
I am restoring my 95 SC and have a few questions. The car I'm restoring was a nothern car and is in very good condition as far as rust is concern. There are a few items that are rusted too much for restoring. The drive shaft, rear diff. half ahafts and subframe.

I have a 94 4.6 LX and was wondering if the parts from this car will transfer to my 95 SC. I know the differentials are different internally, but was wondering if I can rebuild the LX diff with the SC parts.

Any help will be appreciated!

Mark

Check the axle code. There's a chance they're the same anyway.

Also, yes, given the horsepower constraints, you can actually swap the diffs around if you need to.

I'm wondering how the diff and half shafts are too rusted and the rest of the body is anywhere near decent ...

BTW - MAY want to consider doing a different ratio, or even finding a rear pumpkin already set up (2.73 TL, 4.10 open, whatever.)

RwP
 
Check the axle code. There's a chance they're the same anyway.

Also, yes, given the horsepower constraints, you can actually swap the diffs around if you need to.

I'm wondering how the diff and half shafts are too rusted and the rest of the body is anywhere near decent ...

BTW - MAY want to consider doing a different ratio, or even finding a rear pumpkin already set up (2.73 TL, 4.10 open, whatever.)

RwP

Its weird, It seems the body of the car was some how protected from corrosion. Nothing I have found was rotted through. The worst part is the bottom of the rear bumper and it is just heavy surface rust. Most of the underneath is covered with a light powder. Like when aluminum corodes. How ever, just about everything that is bolted to the car is heavily rusted. The car ran and drove good, and everything worked as designed. I am going to completely dismantle this car and absolutely everything is going to be restored.

The previous owner had a lower ring gear put in, not sure of the ratio now, but it was what everyone seem to prefer here on the forum for a 5-speed car. He gave me the stock ring and pinion and I will be putting that back in. The rear end is a traction-lok and would like to keep it as such, which is the reason I wanted to rebuild my LX rear end with the SC parts. I finally found the answer concerning transplanting the LX drive shaft. It would need to be shortened. Luckily there is a company here local that will do that for me.

The second picture looks like a badly rusted exhaust pipe, but is actually the drive shaft.
rear.jpg


shaft.jpg
 
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wow, the only time i have every seen a drive shaft that bad was in a scrap metal yard from something like a 60-70's car. the diff case is very thick, you can just clean that up and repaint it. i highly suggest getting a new cover. i would suggest reworking the cover but in our applications these need every bit of there alloy for stability. the diff cases and cover are pretty much all the same. the gears are pretty much the same but most all base and lx models dont offer the p o s-trac that the sc does. so if you swap it with something from a lx or base you will want to swap the guts over.
 
Thanks Mr. Slowpoke. Thats great information. I think I will try to clean up the differential case and just take the cover off the LX car. If that doesn't work, I'll just switch the guts to the LX differential.

Mark
 
The 94 LX 3.8 I had, had a 7.7 diff in it, not a 8.8 like the SC does.... and if that is the case on yours, then no the internals can't be swapped.

Fraser
 
Thanks, I didn't know they were different. Will file away for future reference. My 94 has a 4.6 in it so I hope I'm good to go.

Mark
 
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