it appears my rear end has been changed. I think it was just the whole brake drum assembly and not the differential. the center hub size on the rear is smaller than the front. My differential has 8 bolts on the back plate. does anybody know what differential this might be and what years they used them? I had also obtained a spare tire from a mid 80's crhysler van that fits perfectly for my rear. Might the rear be a late 70's to mid 80s?????

also its a 9" drum with model number 546.

went to the junk yard and looked at some plymouth vans rear brakes, they looked exactly the same as mine. But i look in my chiltons valiant book for 73' and the picture of the brakes looks a little bit different. Im thinking it is most likely my rear is from the 80s vans. Does anyone know what size bolt pattern was used for those vans???

The FWD Chrysler mini-vans used a 5x100mm lug pattern. This is close enough to fit on the 5x4" pattern that you currently have in your car. All 9" brake drums are 5x4". All RWD vans used either 5x4.5 or 5x5.5 lug patterns. They also had 10" brake drums. The brake parts do not swap between the min-vans and A-bodies and the 9" and 10" brake parts do not swap between each other. If your car has front disk brakes, that means somebody swapped the wrong rear end into your car. If you have front drum brakes then that rear end may be stock for your car.

Unfortuantly, with our old A-bodies, sometimes it was more important to get it running, then to fix it correctly. You may be the the unfortuant victum of that mentality.

haha, thanks i believe i am that unfortunate victim. my front is disc brakes indeed. problem for me is i know its the wrong rearend, but since the 80's vans rear wont interchange with the a-bodies, then what in the hell did my read come out of! all i know is that its the 7 1/4!!!

I suspect that your rear end came out of another a-body. The rear end specs didn't change for 15 years, so you can pick any year you want. To get a closer idea, you can pull an axle and measure the outer bearings. They changed at least 3 times during that 15 years.

so if i measure the bearings, i can figure out more closely what year it came from ? I guess basicly all i need to do to get the new drums is to measure the bolt pattern and it shudnt be a problem getting the right drums then.