I was wondering what would be an easier swap? I have a LSD differential out of an 83 that has disc brakes on it. I was going to swap it into my 80SA but I'm wondering if it would be easier (or even possible) just to swap the carrier into my 80 rear-end? Anyone have any opinions on this?

 

you have a full rearend and you want to know wether to swap in the whole thing or just the diff???

the easy thing to do would be pull your axles and just swap in the whole diff.
if you swap in the rear end with disc you will need to deal with changing the thread pitch on the brake lines.

 

so are you saying that i can use the stock 80 axels or I need to use the 83 axels? So it it is possible to use the same housing and just change out the center section then? I tryed to search but I can't seem to find anything on anybody ever doing that before. Can anyone give me some direction on exactely what I need to do to do this?

 

You use your axles with the 83 carrier. The carrier/3rd member/pumpkin will bolt in. You will need a 83-85 M/T driveshaft. A driveshaft out of a 83 A/T will work also. The 83-85 models have a large driveshaft flange.

 

i am going to get a driveshaft made anyway for my TII swap so that part was already being planned on. So I guess what you guys are saying is that it makes more sense to just bolt the carrier in then swapping out the entire rear-end right?

 

I have swapped a bunch of rear ends and just switching the carrier has always worked. As said above, the brake line connection is different from the axle to the chassis for the drum brakes versus the disk brakes, so you will have to make a change there in the rubber tube connector that goes between the axle and body. The emergency cable may be different for drum vs disk too. The 83-85 flange to the drive shaft is different than the earlier ones, but you do not have to get a new drive shaft. You can take the flange from the earlier one and swap it onto the 83. You just have to manage to undo that heavily torqued nut that holds it on, while keeping the axles from spinning.

If you use your drum brake carrier and you just swap the lsd diff into it, it will work. But if you want to use the axles from the disk brake rear end in your current carrier you will have to take the bearings off and swap the flange. The drum brake uses a 4 bolt flange to bolt on the axle and the disk brake uses a 3 bolt flange. To me that makes the full carrier swap a better choice, unless you are changing bearings anyhow.