How to Put a 240 Axle Into an Amazon

[DJS]

This is how I went about swapping my 1969 Amazon axle for a 240 axle. My car has the later lower trailing arms. There are lots of ways to do this. This is one method.

There are many reasons why you might want to swap the axle. I chose to do it because I was interested in the different ratios available and this is also part of a bigger project. You can use the metric stud pattern (240) or have the drive flanges re-drilled to the imperial size (Amazon). If you keep the metric stud pattern you will need to find a pair of 1800E / ES front hubs. These are a straight swap. As mentioned, thanks for Mitch (Khe Sanh) for mine.

Some dimensions.

The Amazon axle is 1368mm wide

The 240 axle is 1400mm wide.

I measured both on the bench.

The Amazon and 240 axle tubes are exactly the same diameter at 63.5mm (2.5”). This made the jig design simple.

The original upper trailing arm and damper platform brackets are 4mm thick. The lower trailing arm brackets are 5mm thick.

You can either cut a pair of brackets from an old axle, or as I did, make new. I chose to fabricate my brackets from mild steel plate. I up-gauged both to 6mm. As I am lazy I drew up the brackets and had them laser cut. I also had parts for the jig laser cut at the same time.

Care point. You will need a fairly powerful Mig welder to complete this job. A little hobby Mig from Halfords is probably not going to be much good.

The first thing you need to do is to find a 240 axle. When you have one, carefully cut off the original mounting brackets. Clean the axle tubes, again being careful. Save the panhard rod stub from the 240 axle, as it can be machined down to the same size as the Amazon one, due to being larger in diameter and length. See photo 1. You will also need to machine up a couple of spring seat holders. They are the little round locators on top of the axle, that you see when you remove the spring seat rubbers.

Buy a length of say 40 x 80mm box section. This is what you will build the jig on. Take the Amazon axle out of the car and put it on the bench. Level the axle over your box section and bring the nose up level so that the input flange is perfectly vertical (assuming that your bench is also perfectly horizontal). I used two brackets to support the axle tubes. Have a look at photo 2. This gave me the basis for building the rest of the jig. The axle was centralised about these two brackets and tacked into place.

Now you can go about picking up the lower and upper trailing arm mounting points. I used the inner sleeves that came with a poly bush kit that I bought, as I intend to make these in stainless. Once you have done this, you can remove the original axle from the jig. See photos 3 and 4.

Now put your new axle onto the jig and centralise it. Level the input flange again. Put a couple of small tacks onto the axle and jig to hold it all in place whilst you work on it.

You can now tack the new brackets onto the axle. You will also need to weld on the two spring seat locators. These only take a few minutes once you have a pair. When the brackets are tacked into place you can remove the axle from the jig and fully weld it. I forgot to take a photo at this stage, so put the axle back onto the jig later for the final photo. See photo 5. Sounds simple, which it is within reason, but the job will take some time. It took me three days to design and build the jig and weld on all of the new brackets.

The panhard rod bracket will be welded on later. When the axle is trial fitted to the car it will be tacked in place. I want to re-align it so that it is horizontal at the new ride height, to minimise lateral axle movement in bump and rebound.

[jimbo1593]

Great posting DJS.

[DJS]

Cheers Jimbo.

I'll try and get some better pictures when it is blasted and powder coated.

It went into the car a treat.

There are a couple of other interesting modifications about to take place.

I'll post them up when I'm sure they are ok and work.

Darren.

[marktt]

Hello joe,

I saw a post of you where you changed your amazon rear axle for a 240 axle. I am doing the same thing. I can't view your photo's which you posted. Do you still have them? If it's possible can you send me those by email? Marktt1999@hotmail.com.