I'm the proud owner of a 74 Dodge Dart 4 door. It was added too the stable a few days ago.

I'm going through the brakes. Front was single piston discs BBP. Rears were... 11" drum... Saywhat? It's a 8 1/4" rear. Per the fender tag, B41 code means front discs and 10" rear drums. Ok, so someone's been monkeying around back there. FYI, 195/75r14 tires.

My question - when I put the jack up on the center of the rear, I'm unable to remove the tire. There is not enough travel room to clear the studs (edit, may have been hitting drums too, can't recall) before the outside sidewall hits the fender. The fender line is pretty low, almost like it had skirts on it. Remember, I'm used to a Duster.

I had to put jack stands on it, set it down so the rear end drops, then get the tire out. My question is - is this normal procedure to remove a tire on a Dart of this vintage? Or, did whomever monkey with the brakes also swap a different / longer rear? I think the rear has been changed because the spring perches appear to be 44" (Early B body from what I found) vs 43" of an A body. I couldn't get a super accurate measurement so I can't be positive but it does appear to be more then 43 and very close to 44.

It's not really surprising that you had trouble getting the loose wheel/tire assembly out, with everything supported at the center section. Most of the time, on most older cars, one had to allow the rear to droop. (That's one of the reasons they were equipped with bumper jacks.)
While it's certainly possible that someone put a B-body rear under your car, it might be wise to investigate further.

Was your Dart originally, (or still), a V-8 car? If so, it probably came with that 8.25 rear, especially if it was a manual trans car.

Roger

It appears to me you answerd yer own question......

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

11" drums were not available on A-bodies; somebody did a not-entirely-thoughtful rear axle swap: spring perches too widely spaced, and too much rear brake! It'll aggravate the A-body tendency to lock the rears prematurely. If you're keeping the 11" drums in back, put in the smallest-bore rear wheel cylinders you can get (which is 3/4" bore). If you put back the correct 10" drums, use 13/16" rear wheel cylinders; in both cases the 15/16" stock bore is too large.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Even on a 10" drum 7 1/4" with tall profile tires it's a bit of a struggle to get them out of the late 4 door wheel wells...you get very spoiled with the duster's wide open wells...

With the 8.25" rear you can transplant 10's or 11's on the back (not that it's a good idea, 10's seem to work fine when using discs up front). I had picked up an 8.25" from a local drag racer that had done the same thing 11's on the back...when asked why, he stated that the 340 in the 73 he had built would not adequately stop with the B-body front discs and 10" rears....price was right so i just swapped 10's back on it and it's under the hpak duster now and works just fine (dude was installing a Dana 60 when I got there...)

-D.Idiot

Yeah, it does have 2 more cylinders then I'm used to.

The 8 1/4 on it is odd, the fill plug is not on the cover. It's on the right side, up higher. There are no fill/drain holes on the cover. Only mopar rear I've seen like that was a 8 3/4".

There's some numbers on the bottom. I'll have to clean it up and see if I can make anything out.

Maybe out of a Dak or an FJM-body??

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

OOPS! Pierre.....I forgot to mention to you about the obvious.

Please....PLEASE!......put a jack stand under the frame rail of the side you're working on. Don't trust your life or limb to a (probably) Chinese-made hydraulic floor jack. Well, don't trust any hydraulic floor jack. Doing so is the kind of thing you read about in the newspaper, and it's usually connected with somebody getting crushed and/or killed.

Roger

You mean you trust the Chinese jack stand more then the Chinese floor jack?

I read a post or two on moparts saying that the earlier 8.25's are as I described. Now I just need to get more accurate measurements... or maybe the sequence number is stamped on the housing somewhere?

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Now, how can I argue with that logic?

Personally, I get the 6-ton stands, and derate them to half.

Roger