Has anyone trussed the 8"?

[MichiganGX]

My wheeling buddy just grenaded his 8" and I am starting to get paranoid about mine. I have been looking for the right deal on a locked 8.2" but those are few and far between out here in the rustbelt. Been thinking about trussing mine as a temporary solution since I hear most of the downfalls of the 8" come from the housing having too much flex. Has anyone ever done this or does anyone have a datasheet on the metal composition of the housing?

 

[Zjohnsonua]

The housing flex you're referring to is in the third member itself. Put some torque in the housing due to a V8 or some big tires and the towers flex out, the backlash goes to hell, and the RG pops. To stop this you would need to have a brace that looked something like this scribble. Idea being to hold the towers in place and maintain relative position between the pinion and the RG. I do not know of an available brace like this. A few of us have kicked the idea around, but we punted due to the limited room between the cover and the RG for such a brace to fit safely.

 

[MichiganGX]

The housing flex you're referring to is in the third member itself. Put some torque in the housing due to a V8 or some big tires and the towers flex out, the backlash goes to hell, and the RG pops. To stop this you would need to have a brace that looked something like this scribble. Idea being to hold the towers in place and maintain relative position between the pinion and the RG. I do not know of an available brace like this. A few of us have kicked the idea around, but we punted due to the limited room between the cover and the RG for such a brace to fit safely.

View attachment 2928582

Thanks so much for the clarification and input!

 

[daklakfoto]

there were some idea to do CBPL plus solid spacer to keep it tight after 10+ years on road. However, due to my grenade rear 8" diff, I think it will be just matter of times if you have the following:
1. weight heavy in your rig
2. bouncing of rear while trying overtake obstacle: you may prevent 1st few, but it will eventually break
3. likely when you really need 1st/2nd gear to crawl but just a bit of bounce could cause the flex thus blew it.

After the fiasco, IMHO, it is better to replace at minimum the 8.2" to help mitigate it. I lucky to get friends and not too far from home (200 miles cover by AAA) to tow home. If not, the cost of breakdown on trail or your trip would definitely greater than the saving you are trying to do.

.02 from a friendly grenaded 8" to another....