In Part 1 of Rear-Surrection, Project Getaway had its underbelly hacked from beneath to make room for the 4x2-inch pre-welded rear frame from Chris Alston's Chassisworks-with the much-appreciated assistance of Carroll's Rod and Racecraft in Spotswood, New Jersey.
As previously mentioned, Ed Krawiec and Bobby Carroll decided to take the project a step further by sinking both the front and rear frame sections up an additional 2 1/2-inches into the carcass of the Chevy II. While this will give the deuce a lower center of gravity and some seriously bad-to-the-bone looks, it will also create some additional modifications, possible headaches, and a few late nights-worth of head scratching. We are confident that all will be well in the end, because modifications like this are nothing new to Carroll-and will be rewarding for sure.
Before beginning any project,...
Before beginning any project, it's always good to lay out all of the components on a clean workable surface. Pictured is the Chris Alston's Chassisworks FAB9 9-inch housing, the late Ford #8001 housing ends and all of the necessary tooling to properly align and measure in order to narrow the rear and weld the ends on.
What kind of modifications you ask? For starters hood clearance. All parts are engineered to fit as they should. By pulling an additional 2 1/2-inches of overhead, it might be necessary to facilitate a change in the position of engine mounts to lower the engine assembly. That, in turn, might cause issues with oil pan clearance in the area of the crossmember.
Next is wheel fitment. Since the Nova came from the factory with 14-inch wheels, and since Ed decided to go with Intro Wheels 19-inchers up front, fender modifications are a must-in some cases suspension modification might even be necessary.
Out back the 20-inch Intro Wheels should not cause any problems beyond fabrication of the custom wheel housings and a 3-inch stretch of the rear wheel opening. Under a less customized situation, the mating of the floor wouldn't be altered from such a modification, but since we planned on a plethora of custom tinwork, we won't encounter any surprises in this portion of the build.
The first job at hand is to...
The first job at hand is to install the threaded fasteners into the housing, which will eventually hold the differential into place. (Loctite threadlocker should be used.)
Beyond a sit-down to discuss the aforementioned modifications, we've decided to take the project even further by removing the stock firewall in favor of a smoothed, one-piece custom unit to be fabricated by Carroll's. Additional discussion had ventured off into the placement of the master cylinder for braking. Future plans at this time have us installing the unit internally below the dashboard in a 90-degree fashion for an ultra-clean look beneath the hood, although during a project of this magnitude, plans do change from time to time.
Now stay tuned as we show you how to properly narrow a 9-inch rear housing, as well as properly welding the housing ends in a squared manner. Beyond final construction of the housing we'll install components from Strange Engineering and Wilwood Engineering.
 Next, Bobby attaches this...  Next, Bobby attaches this plate to the differential to determine the pinion centerline, which will be the central point of determining the final length of each axle tube. Also to be considered is the actual length of the housing ends to be used. |  Since the overall length of...  Since the overall length of our rear from housing end to housing end needs to measure 44.625 inches, we'll need to deduct 2 inches from each side (housing end length) for the actual tube length. |  Here's Bobby measuring for...  Here's Bobby measuring for the length of the passenger side axle tube. Since the pinion offset of our FAB9 rear is 1/2-inch to the passenger side, the passenger tube will measure 19.8125 inches and the driver's side 20.8125 inches before adding 4 inches total with the housing ends installed. |