Thread: Jaguar rear end on 34 Roadster?

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"All" talks about the S-type rearend as the best Jaguar rearend on hotrods, because they don't need to bee shortened.
But they are only 55 inches.
I've seen nice 34 Fords with 57 inch rearaxle.

Is 55 inches too narrow on a 34 if I wish to fill the rearfenders with max wide tires?
Of course, its easy to change the offset on the rims, but that's not a good solution for the wheel bearings.

Vik',

55" is a piece o' cake. I usually use a Maverick housing which has the wheel mounting flanges at 56". A 1" positive offset wheel (usually 8" wide rim) and a 255/70 tire has plenty of clearance to the body/frame. Another 1/2" per side would be negligible for bearing load.

Just make sure you set the carrier high enough in the chassis to get the car close enough to the ground.

Thank you for your answer!
And that bring me to another question:
The Jaguar axle has those rather large aluminium hubs uttermost on each driveshaft. The ones which holds lower arm fixed correct with the driveshaft.
The hubs hits the '34 frame with an inch or so when the rear axle moves upward. If the axle had been about 1 1/2 inch wider on each side the hubs would have gone on the outside of the framrails an allowed the car to sit lower down.

I know these hubs probably are made this big and strong to be the "crash point" against the Jaguar's underside. I also know the crash point on a hotrod where the hubs goes on the outside of the frameralis actually will be the driveshaft, which can result in loosing control of the car since the rearwheels will change position if the driveshaft get bended.
But my thaugt was to make an new crashpoint on the outside of the framrail, but higher up than underside of frame.

How about cut off some of the edge on the hubs to make them narrow enough to pass on the poutside of the framerail? Are they still strong enough?

Or do I have to make the frame more narrow at that special point to lower the car as much as possible?

Good question!

I'm more conservative when it comes to this sort of thing. Perhaps the hub carriers are "over engineered" and there is some room for trimming. I'm not as familar with the later versions you are considering so I don't have a personal reference. That would be a judgement call for you or a very knowledgeble friend. My tendency would be to modify the frame, and likely the body underside correspondingly, for clearance and not adulterate the "factory" engineering. They have greater resources than we do for calculating those sorts of things.

I'll check around a bit.
I have a couple of telephone numbers to people with the same car/rear axle combination.

Thank you for your answers and I'll post a new reply When i've got some more information!

Now it's over 10.00 pm here in Norway and tomorrow is a new day at work.

Good night!