8.8 fox rearend swap

What 8.8 rearends will work in the fox body mustangs? Will the 1980's ltd or mercury 8.8's work or the 1980's thunderbird 8.8?

the T-Bird turbo coupe rearend will work in the mustang. I think that is the only other fox chassis that used the 8.8 The other fox stuff got the 7.5

there are lots of vehicles with 8.8's

the only ones that are a direct bolt-in to 94-04 Mustangs are from 94-04 Mustangs.

The follow cars have an 8.8 housing that will bolt into a Mustang with minimal modification (i.e. no welding, just changes of brakes/axles, maybe minor cutting on the rear) include:

Mark VII (NOT the Mark VIII)
some 88 and older tbirds and cougar, especially the 87-88 TurboCoupe
86-93 Mustang
86 Capri
79-85 Mustang and capri with an 8.8 rear swapped in by the owner after the car was produced

if you can't find one in your particular junkyard, use www.car-part.com to search junkyards in your area and across US and Canada for the rears.


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the following 8.8 housings will NOT work unless you do major, very expensive modifications to them or to your car. (i.e. cutting off and rewelding suspension mounting points, cutting off, shortening and rewelding axle tubes, or cutting up your car)
ranger (the pumpkin is offset on this. if you tried to center the pumpkin in your mustang then one side would stick out while the other side would be sunken in )
explorer
f150
aerostar
89+ thunderbird and cougar
town car
crown victoria (6 inch wider track than Mustang. great if you want your rear wheels to stick out 2+ inches beyond your quarter panel)grand marquis
mark viii
2005+ Mustang
Mazda b-series truck
Mazda Navajo
Mountaineer
Aviator

on all of those vehicles the widths are wrong. the shock and spring mounting points are wrong. on the 89+ tbird and cougar and later explorer/mountaineer/aviator an IRS is used.

you *can* use components from those rears in a proper width 8.8 housing however, including the differential (tlock and a couple other factory installed diffs in certain vehicles, including a couple with 31 splines) and ring and pinion. you can use certain side axle shafts from certain year Ranger and Aerostar as well.
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you can find the gear ratio installed in the rear by looking at the metal tag on it.

for example, in all of the other numbers, the tag on a crown vic police interceptor might say 3L55 which means it has 3.55 gears with a limited slip differential. and on a Ranger you might find 4 10 (note the space in between the 4 and the 10) which means 4.10 gears with an open differential.
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Also the 87-88 Turbo T-Bird 8.8" Rearends are 3/4"wider per side IIRC than the 86-93 8.8" Mustang rearends.

Later Mark.