RearEndSwap2

Next we can remove the upper control arms from the rear end. Once again a wrench and power bar/johnson bar will be needed to loosen the bolt, then a ratchet can be used. Place the wrench on the nut and allow it to turn until it rest upon the pumpkin of the rear end, this way you will not have to hold onto it. Remove both boths this should free the rear end from the car. Since the drive shaft has been removed the rear end will want to turn because the front of the rear end is heavier so try placing a floor jack under the front of the rear end where the driveshaft would meet the rear end. Then the tricky part of getting the rear end out from beneath the car. This will require two people, each grad and end of the rear end and pull it out, careful with your backs, this thing is heavy when you are bending over. You might want to try and just lower it off of the jack stands and then sliding it out from under the car. Best thing is to sit on your butt to get it off the jack stands. Just a thought!

Now with the rear end removed, take the jack stands and put the rear end back up on them and allow the rear end to turn so that the rear end cover is point up. Now remove the remaining bolts that are holding the cover on. Remove the rear end cover, you may need a flat head screwdriver to get it off. Once you have the cover removed them place a tray under the rear end and spin the rear end and allow the fluid to drain.

Allow the rear end to spin again until the opening is facing upwards again. You should be able to see the gears now. Spin the axles until you see a small little bolt inthe very center part of the rear end. The little screw will be facing sideways towards the passanger side of the rear end. Oddly enough this bolt was very tight on my 94 rear end but came loose very easily on the 88 Turbo-coupe rear end, weird eh? I had to heat up the metal around the little bolt inorder to get it loose, I actually stripped the head on the bolt on my rear end and had to use needle nosed vice grips to get a hold of the head. Heat up the housing real hot and then use a wrench to loosen the bolt, you will not have enough room to use a socket. Its an 8mm bolt I believe! You will notice a shaft or pin down the center of the hosing this is what the little screw hold in. Once you remove the screw remove this pin or shaft, place your hand underneath it and push it up and then pull it out the top. Once you have this done you will be able to push the axles in, push it in where the wheel is held on the the bolts for the lug nuts. It will only go in about 1 inch but this wil expose the C clips inside the housing. Carefully remove this clips by placing your hand under them and letting them drop into your hand or by using a magnet to grab them. Once you have the C clip removed then the axles will just slide right out. We are now finished with the 7.5 rar end.

Once you have the axles make sure you DO NOT move the gear assembly inside the pumpkin, the gears may move on you inside the t-lok. Now that the axles are removed you will be able to see the axle seal on each end. Using a seal puller remove the seal on each end. Once the seal is remoived you will be able to see the axle bearing. Check the bearing and replace if necessary. I did not have to replace the bearings on my rear end, they looked pretty clean and spun freely. If you do decide to replace them make sure you use a bearing puller. To install the new axle seal you will want to put a little oil around the outter edges tohelp slide it in. Place it carefully on the rear end and take a giant socket or something the same diameter as the seal and hammer it in, you want something the same size as the seal so that it goes instraight. Press itin until it sits flush with the edge of the rear ends, it can only go in so far anyways until it hits the bearing, but make sure it sits flush with the rear end and does not stick out at all.

Take the old 7.5 rear end off of the jack stands and place the 8.8 rear on the jack stands. Be sure to remove all of the control arms and brakelines from the 8.8 first, when I got my 8.8 rear end the wreckers just cut the control arms off so I had small pieces of each control arm still on the 8.8 along with pieces of the shocks as well. My 8.8 rear end also came with the brakes still attached, remove everything until you have just the plain housing withthe alxes, basically have it look like the 7.5 did when you pulled it out of the car. Also if the 8.8 has the driveshaft yoke on it, remove it since you will be using you 7.5 yoke. Unless of course you want to try and mess with the universal joint! Now you will want to remove the axles from your 8.8 rear end the same way we removed them from the 7.5 rear end.

Now take the 5 lug axles from your 7.5 rear end and slide them all the way into the 8.8 rear end. You will be able to see inside the housing where the C clips go, reinstall the C clips and then pull on the axles until they stop, they should only pull out about 1 inch just enough so you can no longer see the C clip, this will allow you to reinstall the pin or shaft back into the housing, then screw back in the little 8mm screw. Before you do this though put a little thread lock onto the little screw. Tighten this screw as tight as you can with a wrench without stripping the head. Can't torque it down once again because you don't have enough room to use a socket. Now clean the surface where the rear end cover goes, remove all of the old gasket from the rear end as well as from the cover. Run a strip of RTV sealant around the outside and around each bolt hole on the rear end. Place the cover over top and screw down the bolts. Tighten these bolts down snugly, not extremely tight but pretty tight.

Now remove the rear end from the jack stands and place it on the floor. We are now going to fill it with rear gear oil. You will notice on the drivers side on the front of the pumpkin there will be a fill plug. You will need a 3/8 drive extension to remove this plug, no socket is required. Remove this plug. Now we can fill the rear end with gear oil. You will need friction modifier if your ggear oil does not already have it mixed in with it. I used Castrol rear gear oil and had to buy a separate bottle of friction modifier and add it. If you have to add friction modifier then put this into the rear end first. You can use a pump or just put a hose onthe end of the bottle and direct it into the opening. Next fill the rear end up with gear oil until the fluid is level with the fill plug opening, basically until it starts pouring out the fill plug opening. Make sure the rear end is level when doing this. Once it is level with the opening then reinstall the fill plug and tighted it down tightly.

If you have a 96-98 rear end with ABS brakes you may have to make another modification to the rear end. I believe the ABS sensor on the Turbo-coupe rear end is positioned slightly off from where the Mustang sensor needs to be, this is not confirmed but it may hit the gear on the rotor of the mustang axle. If it does then the plate has to be replaced with the one from the mustang. This is easy since it is only bolted on. Although on the Turbo-coupe this plate has a support bracket behind it that is welded on, the mustang support bracket is only bolted on using U-bolts. You will have to either cut this bracket off or break the welds, shouldn't be hard though. Once the mustang plate is installed then you can either re-weld the bracket back on or bolt on the mustang bracket. You may also have to adapt it a little to clear the quad-shock mounting bracket but it should fit fine.