Hey all, Recently I decided I was going to redrill the stock rear axle shafts on my 82 GSL. Some of you may know that I have done a lot of work on this car, including installing of TII front hubs. Well, here are the results. It only cost me about $130 to do all the work, including new axle seals and bearings. I have some connections in a machine shop. Anyway, the whole process wasn't all that hard. Basically remove the axle shafts, remove the old bearings, fill all old holes with weld, take the axles to a machine shop and tell them what you want done. I personally machined the front and rear surfaces on a lathe, but a pro machinist (my Dad) layed out the holes and drilled them. After that I brought them home and layed out the new holes on the brake rotor and drilled them with my 8" drill press at home. I then pressed in new FC studs and put the new bearings on and new seal in the axle. Everything was then assembled. The axles were drilled to fit a 5x108 wheel, a wheel that I have from another car I had before. Many FWD fords come with this bolt pattern, so its very popular in the aftermarket segment, but not quite as popular as the 5x114.3. Either way I already had these wheels.

Overall I am pleased with the results. The wheel fits on perfectly. One thing that has come up in past threads is drilling the rear axles for the 5x114.3 bolt pattern. This is entirely possible on a GSL-SE rear axle, but on a 4x110 axle I don't think its possible. There doesn't seem to be enough material on the flange to allow that size bolt circle. I have attached a picture to show how little material is actually there even with the smaller bolt circle.

 

Looks good ... I'm considering on purchasing the respeed ones



Looks good and seems to be good quality too. I hope you don't have to drill all your brake rotors though.

 

nice. the rims look nice.

 

drilling rotors wont be a big deal if he has family in a machine shop.


dj55b--- i just recently bought the moser axles through respeed. GREAT workmanship. it looks better designed than stock. i highly recommend them.

 

aws140, what rotors are you using with the axles?

I read on thier site that you have to use the big brake kit they offer, whats up with that?

 

I probably would have went with the respeed moser axles as well, but It was WAY cheaper for me to do it this way and the respeed axles are 5x114.3, wrong bolt pattern for the wheels I have so I would have to get 4 adapters instead of 2 to make the wheels work. The front is already converted to the respeed big brake kit with low mileage TII parts from a JDM front clip. The rears I had to redrill the brake rotors for, but thats VERY easy to do. A small drill press and some minor layout skills are all that is needed as they don't have to be dead on accurate and the cast iron of the rotors is uber easy to drill through. I also didn't want to buy all the TII rear brake parts to make it work with the respeed kit. Like I said, with the wheel bearings, seals and studs it all came to about $130.

Looking at the pics of the respeed ones, I don't like how little material is on the outside of the holes at the edge. Doesn't look strong enough, but probably is. But I was just at the respeed site and they still aren't available yet. I wonder whats up with that.

 

Great job on your axles!

Our axles are to help when converting to our rear big brake kit. We can also do any pattern needed. The amount of material on the flange is plenty strong. I did question this with Moser when the prototype samples were made up. They assured me they will hold up. The majority of the force on the studs is rotationally along the circle pattern. Not enough force outwards to break the material. Since they build axles for BIG horse power cars and are the leader in the market, I trust them.

-billy

 

^^ what they said is very true, even when the rear brakes a locked up (for example hand brake drift) even though the force would be linear but if you look at it the force will be pulling towards the rear and with a 5 bolt pattern you will almost have 3 of the studs pulling back toward the back so the force is applied evenly (unless the steel is weak or too thin which then could bend it or worse break it out of place)

 

Thanks bwaits. I wouldn't have been able to do this so cheaply if my dad didn't work in a tool and die shop. He has taught me a lot about machining and welding and I owe some of my successes on this car to him.

I was just on the Respeed site and I found the Moser axles. I don't see any listed for 82 and under cars, only the 83-85 -SE and non-SE. Either way those are way out of my price range. $300 USD plus shipping to Canada and exchange on top of that then you have duty charges, they would probably be close to $500 CND by the time they got to me. Then you still have to add bearings on to that then all the brake parts. I'm not trying to put the setup down, but its just not in my budget.

 

I think the reason that they only offer them for those years is because of the bigger axels and since most people that look at bigger wheels and and bigger brakes have more power and are running these bigger axles on their cars.

 

The main limiting factor in the small bearing axles is that Moser refused to make them. You see they start with rough blanks that are heat treated. By the time they machined the diameters for the small spline 90% of the heat treat would be cut away. Leaving soft and useless axles.

So there is still a void in the market for our rear brake kit for the small axle guys.

-billy

 

Its unfortunate that the big axles don't fit in a small axle 3rd member. If you can get the 3rd member as well as the larger axle bearings (assuming the housing is the same), the large axles would work on a small axle car. But otherwise us 82 and older 7 owners are SOL.