Thread: old school (cheap) Ford 9'' full floater?

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I'm building an old school nostalgia front engine bracket dragster and the price of fabricated floater housings is way out of my budget. I have several housings, good fabrication and machining skills and want to build my own, any body out there done this before, that can take me to school on part's selection and useable junk yard parts? thanks, Paul

Why do you feel you need a full floater? If you're concerned about rulebook axle retention in event of breakage, any 9" Ford rear has that feature.

Richard, it's not so much NEED, I've spent a good ammount of time over 200 MPH on semi floaters and trust them, I want the added strength, safety and longevity of a full floater. This car will spend most of it's life in 8.90/7.50 brackets and quick 8 shootout's but is being spec'ed and certified to occasionally step up to junior fuel / NE-2 and open outlaw.

I googled this for you........
http://www.bc4x4.com/tech/2002/ff9/

Watch the want ads in National Dragster. I've seen a few in there from time to time. To build your own, you'd need a rear end narrowing jig to cut down the housing and get the ends positioned correctly. Kind of spendy for a one time deal probably.....

Dave, I've got the bar and puck setup like is used in Richards link and have done a few shortened housings with good results. The conversion in the link above was done by 4WD guys and I'm sure works very well in that world, it's just not as elegantly simple as what I want to build, too many parts, too busy, and I'm sure those custom flanges are not cheap. I remember the first floaters I saw used in rails, back in the 60's. Unfortunately, the picture in my mind's eye is fuzzy with age... The NASCAR guy's have run floaters forever, I've just never been up close and personal with a GN rear, to see how they do it.
It seem',s to me that a guy could cut the tubes off a full floater truck housing W/disc brakes and weld it to a 9 in. center housing, then redrill a 5 on 5.5" bolt pattern on the flange. I guess I need to crawl under a few trucks and look around. what do you guy's think ? Paul

Take a look at any of the circle burner parts sites. Many of the dirt trackers, and all of the higher class modifieds and late models run a floater rear. Familiarize yourself with what you'll need, then watch for used stuff. The snouts the Grand National cars use are fairly cheap and plenty strong.... Only problem might be finding a drive flange with enough splines. Most of the circle burners on dirt only run a 10 or 12 spline axle, wouldn't last long in a digger with slicks I don't think... Broke two axles last summer, just dirt tracking and getting a good hook.... Check eBay, too. Not a real big selling item, if you could locate one, could go cheap....

Great advice from everyone. One more suggestion to chew on. Give your self a bit of extra length on total end to end length (axle flange to axle flange). This promotes tire Plant to the pavement under launch and the floater system will like it better. Better hook up and straighter launches. Because of the off set of the wheel (inboard) will apply a better "bite" when the tires "shock" on their initial "hit".

Nitrowarrior, The frame is an S&W 185" with a 24" hoop, (yep, I'm a bigun') I'm setting it up to use 15 X 15-4.5" offset rims and will start with 15-18-33" slicks, ('cause I have 'em) although the rear is mounted low enough to run a tire as short as 30" and still have sufficiant ground clearance. Quick and dirty math say's an axel length (flange to flange ) of at least 39", but I'm leaning toward 41". Care to venture an opinion on this, in light of your last post?
Initial set up will be 38" out, 2 degrees down angle, shortie 'glide, slip shaft coupler. thanks, Paul

I don't remember exactly how the floater we used back inthe 70 for our alcohol FC was made but the stub was just a tube machined to slip fit the ID of the bearings with a shoulder on the inner end. I know both bearings were tapered roller (after ball bearings failed). As I recall a snap ring was used with machined spacers for a "0" clearance. The idea was to preload the bearings just as the front bearings were...."0"clearance, no preload. It was very easy to disassemble and I'm certain we used never seize onthe spindle so the inner race would not tear up the spindle. The hubs were very similar to the NASCAR type. We had Mark Williams make the axels and drive plates. Very simple. Floaters were just coming into being back then so there were several designs around.

Paul, run it as you stated. You're going to plant the slicks when it shocks. Keep going, you're on the right track.