[Durt]

Not being a chassis expert by any stretch of the imagination - my diagnostics are purely speculative. I initially thought that a frame member had fractured as the entire rear end was swaying like I had two rear flat tires in a 100 mph cross wind. And indeed - there might be a frame issue I couldn't see. But when I put the end on jackstands and applied some force to the right rear wheel - it floated around like it had no support at all (fore and aft) - but the A arms, shocks & sway bar were all intact. The wheel still bears the weight of the car. The left rear is rock solid. The only thing that looked suspect was the inner CV joint assembly, which ironically didn't split the boot this time. It just looks like a distorted rubber bag and the shaft seems to be disconnected from the dif. Is it the culprit? I won't know until I can find the time to get the car into a friend's shop who do just this sort of thing.
But before I discuss a new setup with them - I just wanted to canvas the peanut gallery to see if anyone had retrofit a nice, simple, dumb, junkyard solid 9" axle in a SPF.
After ten years - the old beast is starting to throw me a lot of maintenance curve balls. The expense is one thing - but trust is a much larger issue. It's bad enough to lose the alternator in the middle of the night driving over the Crest Highway on the way home from Willow Springs - but narrowly avoiding a nasty shunt on the freeway when the suspension lets go is flat-out scary.