1963 Rear End

[Jerry C.]

The two bolts that go thru the front snubber I think should have a castle nut and cotter key. Replacements from CC and Paragon have nuts and lock washers. Should they have castle nuts? Thanks in advance.

[Harry S.]

Re: 1963 Rear End

Jerry, as I recall there is only one bolt that goes through on a 63, lock washer and nut. Forward of that there are two bolts, lock washers and washers that are installed from the right and left side. Never recall seeing a castle nut.

[Edward J.]

Re: 1963 Rear End

Jerry, If you have the correct 63 rear diff. , the front holes were threaded into diff. housing, and the front diff. bracket has two short bolts on either side with lock washers and flat washers, and the rear mounting hole has a long through bolt, lock, and flat washer with nut, no cotter pin in 63 at that position, in 64 they had two long through bolts with flat washers and cotter pins and castle nuts. the snubber rubber bushing has along through bolt the smaller flat washer, then a bigger flat washer on bottom, lock washer and nut. Hope I explained that right.

[Joe R.]

Re: 1963 Rear End

Jerry, If you have the correct 63 rear diff. , the front holes were threaded into diff. housing, and the front diff. bracket has two short bolts on either side with lock washers and flat washers, and the rear mounting hole has a long through bolt, lock, and flat washer with nut, no cotter pin in 63 at that position, in 64 they had two long through bolts with flat washers and cotter pins and castle nuts. the snubber rubber bushing has along through bolt the smaller flat washer, then a bigger flat washer on bottom, lock washer and nut. Hope I explained that right.

You explained it perfectly however the Dana rear ends like you explained did go over into the 64 year. Later they replaced the Dana rear ends with Eaton units. Don't know how late the Dana's went into the 64 year or maybe to the end. The Dana rear ends were much weaker than the Eaton units and the posi units in the Dana's cracked causing a lot of problems especially if you were far away from home.

JR

PS. you can put an Eaton posi into a Dana case and have the appearance of a Dana correct unit.

[Gary R.]

Re: 1963 Rear End

Ed & Joe offered some good information. To supplement it, the 63-64's were weaker then the later diff's but there were issue down the whole line from 63-82. Once one area was addressed there were others that needed attention.

The 63/64 are different then the later units in several areas. The mentioned front bolt holes were tapped 7/16-14. The bracket used was very thin and twisted under loading, this was corrected by '69 with a thicker gauge and welded plate over the 2 holes. The upper cover holes in the housing are thru holes. I am not sure if this changed through the 63 run but the '63's I have built had through holes. The rear covers used a machine thread plug and had metal vents and posi tags. There was no date code on the covers.
Inside they were either open or posi. The open case was actually stronger then the DANA posi was, as Joe mentioned many failed under loading. The bearing caps were wider and tabbed with orange paint on them. They used a 5 line hex bolt. The R&P sets were also weak. They used what I refer to as the "wedding band" crush sleeve. The pinion had a square edge that sleeve seated against and this was a weakness. Many pinions sheared at this point, those that attend my Carlisle seminars get to see one I use as a demo. Interestingly when the Diff changed back to a DANA in 1980-82 they still used the square edge pinion and had issues with the posi cases and aluminum bearing caps.
The spline count on the 63 to E 65 pinions was 17 then changed to 30. So when rebuilding a diff with the coarse splines it is advisable to replace them with a new gear set but that will mean a new pinion yoke is needed.

[Wayne M.]

Re: 1963 Rear End

Here's some more, from Tech Service Bulletins.




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