Hey guys,

I have a 1971 Plymouth Satellite. Last year, I upgraded to a Magnum 360 from a 1995 Ram pickup.

The factory rear is 8 1/4 with 2.76 open gearing. I've been checking around and wanted to upgrade to 8 3/4 with a suregrip. 3.91 gears would be preferred since I intend to go fuel injection and also use a truck tranny with overdrive at some point. Anyway, finding a rear, with good gearing and the suregrip appears likely that it will cost several to a thousand hundred bucks...

I used to mess with Lincoln Mark VII's and I have a parts car with a limited slip 8.8 (disc brakes) and 3.27 gears and 5 on 4.5" bolt pattern.

Has anyone done this with success? What would be required other than welding the spring perches on the rear? I looked online and the rear end width listed for the Mark VII was 61.25" and I showed the 1971 Satellite to have a 63" rear. I was thinking for about 1/2 the money, I could have 4-wheel disc brakes... Am I delusional? Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

With a sawzall and a welder, anything can be done.
The drive shaft may need to be modified, both in length and in the rear yoke end. The parking brake and Hydraulic lines could be modified to work. If this isn't your daily driver, it may be worth the effort to try it.
Another option is to look for used 3.55 or 3.91 gears in a wrecked Dakota 4wd. I've found a few of them in the self service yards...CHEAP! I got a 3.55 gear with a clutch type Sure Grip for $70 and put it in a Duster. The axle guy I use did the swap for under $100. Thats FAR less trouble than fiddling with a different axle.
The 8.25 is a decent axle that can take a fair amount of power, especially when behind an automatic. Keep us informed!

Would the Dakota gears be for my current 8 1/4 rear?

What year models of Dakotas?

I believe it is up until 1997? It has to do with the axle shaft spline count. Dr Diff would be able to answer that.

If you have the 8.8 with discs, why not give it a run? There are driveshaft/u-joint work arounds, 8.8s are commonly swapped into Jeeps.
Travis..

I just put a 8.8 in my '74 dodge dart. It was a relatively easy job to do. Its just a strong as a 8 3/4 and parts are dime a dozen. I spent $250 and got a 8.8 with 4.10 gears,limited slip, disk brakes and everything included. Dont forget they also are factory 31 splined axles. I did a weight comparison of the 8.8 loaded vs 8 1/4 loaded, even though the 8.8 is bigger it was 20lbs lighter. I chopped exactly 3 inches off the long axle tube and it tig welded together, I know it seems like it may be weak but the tig welder informed me that his weld would not break it would be somewhere so I guess we will see how it goes. Then all I needed was a passenger(short side) axle to fit the now narrowed side. Put it all together and works great!

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b325/swingers-rock/feb418a5.jpg
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I put an 8.8 out of an 95 exployer and it fit perfect. I had to cut off the mounts that came on the 8.8 and add the mopar spring perches.I also had to have a custom driveshaft built. I have about 125.00 total in the rearend. This website was very helpful.http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/Explorer8_8.html

Great info... I appreciate your help!