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Alan Nyhus · 05-30-2009, 06:48 AM

Very cool. I bought/sold/traded a lot of 409 cars and parts some years back...love those W motors and the cars.

The rear ends in the 58-64 full size cars aren't as wide as the body style would lead you to think they are....a '67-69 Camaro/Nova or '64-67 Chevelle rear end are perfect replacements in drum-to-drum dimension. I did a 12 bolt swap into a '62 Biscayne some years ago that worked out really slick....used a Camaro 12 bolt and welded the brackets from the original '62 read end onto it. Using the back surface of the 12 bolt (where the cover bolts on) and the the front surface of the '62 rear end (where the 3rd member bolts in) as reference points, it was easy to duplicate the correct geometry of the lower control arms and the upper control arm. The control arms were reinforced and I did some old school stuff on the control arm bushings....sheetrock screws screwed into the bushings (3 per side) to stiffen them up.

For brakes, we used a setup from '65-'70 big car (Impala) to replace the 9" brakes from the Camaro. The housing ends/bearings on the '65-up cars are bigger than the Camaro/Nova/Chevelle rears and the bolt spacing of the backing plates to the flange is also wider. I welded up the backing plate mounting holes, redrilled them to the correct location and made up a small steel spacer ring to take up the clearance between the '65-up backing plate and bearing housing o.d. of the Camaro rear. Worked slick. A disc setup would be the way to do it today, of course.

The two-piece driveshaft was replaced with a one piece unit. The notch where the rear portion of the original 'shaft comes out of the frame tunnel was opened up foward to allow for the greater angle....since the driveshafts pivot point was now at the front u-joint instead of at the carrier bearning in the middle of the tunnel.

Congrats Aubrey on a 'way cool stocker. -Al

05-30-2009, 06:48 AM	#33
Alan Nyhus VIP Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Lower Dakota territory Posts: 1,180 Likes: 1,074 Liked 799 Times in 236 Posts	Re: Aubrey's 62 409 goes 11.067 in C/S Very cool. I bought/sold/traded a lot of 409 cars and parts some years back...love those W motors and the cars. The rear ends in the 58-64 full size cars aren't as wide as the body style would lead you to think they are....a '67-69 Camaro/Nova or '64-67 Chevelle rear end are perfect replacements in drum-to-drum dimension. I did a 12 bolt swap into a '62 Biscayne some years ago that worked out really slick....used a Camaro 12 bolt and welded the brackets from the original '62 read end onto it. Using the back surface of the 12 bolt (where the cover bolts on) and the the front surface of the '62 rear end (where the 3rd member bolts in) as reference points, it was easy to duplicate the correct geometry of the lower control arms and the upper control arm. The control arms were reinforced and I did some old school stuff on the control arm bushings....sheetrock screws screwed into the bushings (3 per side) to stiffen them up. For brakes, we used a setup from '65-'70 big car (Impala) to replace the 9" brakes from the Camaro. The housing ends/bearings on the '65-up cars are bigger than the Camaro/Nova/Chevelle rears and the bolt spacing of the backing plates to the flange is also wider. I welded up the backing plate mounting holes, redrilled them to the correct location and made up a small steel spacer ring to take up the clearance between the '65-up backing plate and bearing housing o.d. of the Camaro rear. Worked slick. A disc setup would be the way to do it today, of course. The two-piece driveshaft was replaced with a one piece unit. The notch where the rear portion of the original 'shaft comes out of the frame tunnel was opened up foward to allow for the greater angle....since the driveshafts pivot point was now at the front u-joint instead of at the carrier bearning in the middle of the tunnel. Congrats Aubrey on a 'way cool stocker. -Al