9\" pinion shield

What's the purpose of the heavy-guage steel 'pinion shield' that came on stock 9" rearends? There are also similar things 'cast-in' on the pinion support for 8" rearends and maybe some 9" rears. I'm assuming they are just a mounting / pressure point for the rubber bumper, and I'm also assuming the rubber bumper is ther only because of 'wrap-up' if the rearend were to rotate upwards & poke the underside of the car.

My car has under-rider traction bars, so my thought is that I can just leave off that pinion shield when I install this 9" in my Mustang. I've never seen a pinion shield on an aftermarket 9" rearend, so I'm assuming it's not really needed, especially with welded-on traction bars.
[addsig]

Yes, that is my take, it's a snubber mount. On my '69 with traction bars, I don't have one...

I concur. Who wants a rotating u-joint spinning into a rubber snubber? Bye bye snubber, and possibly bye bye u-joint. But i would also have to agree that, if your pinion hits the snubber with traction bars, you have a bigger problem on your hands than a broken rubber bumper.[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_eek.gif[/img]

I often thought about using that mounting point somehow to create an adjustable pinion snubber like some Mopars use as a traction device.What do you guys think?
Bob
[addsig]

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On 2004-03-03 20:16, mustang68mustangs wrote:
I often thought about using that mounting point somehow to create an adjustable pinion snubber like some Mopars use as a traction device.What do you guys think?
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That's what I did on mine...

yeah, though if you wanted to avoid a long rod shooting through your underbody and through your rear glass you'd have to reinforce it quite a bit...