My Dana 36 story

[PLRX]

I looked for a 2.73 for a while and gave up because it was discontinued. It was an option for the
L98s, RPO GU2. Few weeks ago, a CF member with a 90 swap the 2.73 with something way out of
the park like a 3.73 or something like that.

I jumped on it without doing research because I thought a Dana 36 is a Dana 36 all around. Like
we also do with the Dana 44; from 3.45 we go 3.73, 3.91, 4.11, and 4.56.

I bought it from Jim, and got it home in two days. The gears were in great shape with only 16K miles.

I got busy, I thought it was going to be an easy project.

Remove all the junk adjacent to the Dana 36, and got the sucker on the ground.











As I took it apart I could tell how weak it is compared to the Dana 44. These bolts toque to only 19 lbs.







Few days went by, and I started to wonder. The Gear shop called me with some bad/weird news. The
3.07 uses a different carrier, and he could not find a carrier for the 2.73. I gave him two days to
find it; I asked him how the 3.07 gears looked, and he told me the 3.07 gears still in decent shape.
Two days went by with no luck, the bearing were worn out, so the Dana 36 was rebuilt, and got busy again.













Do you guys remember my old OBX exhaust system I bought for The Ghost over a year ago?





The Magnacrap system looked like a pizza turd so I decided to give it a try. If it didn't make me
happy, I would re-use the Magnacrap.

I ran into a stressful issue, for a few minutes I thought the system was short, but I kept twisting
things, and hitting it with the mallet, and finally aligned to my desired position.









I drove Betty Boop around, and the OBX mufflers are very quiet at highway speeds, but it has a
deep rumble around the city. Now, this is the weirdest thing. I installed new plugs, the rebuilt
differential, and I was reading around 24-28 MPG. That is a record for Betty Boop. I assume the old
differential guts were doing some sort of dragging and robbing few MPG.

[mike100]

That's good if it was parasitic drag. 3.08 is tall enough- I never liked any car with 2.73's I ever drove.

[hcbph]

That's interesting, I learn a little more each article I read.