Has anyone ever rotate the front pumpkin instead of turning there knuckles to get there front driveline inline?

 

Remember that when you rotate the axle to compensate for the pinion angle, you will affect the caster which will make your truck drive like crap if you get in the negative range. Setting the driveline angle is a balance between setting the proper pinion angle and keeping wheel caster as close to factory spec as possible.

How you you plan to rotate the axle? I use adjustable upper and lower control arms on my coil sprung front axle.

 

jeremy pretty much covered it and that is an easy way to do it but you have to watch out when messing around with the caster! i wouldn't go beyond a 3* shim on the front but that is how aftermarket springs come....with a tapered shim to correct the angle!

-cutts-

 

Im NOT rotating the axle...just the pumpkin. Im going to drill out the plug welds on the pumkin and turn it. Ive cut and turn knuckles before and in this situation Im wanting to turn JUST the pumpkin...everthing else stays in place!

 

hmmm, well that should be interesting! never heard of anyone doing that before so i dunno! i say if you have done knuckles before and you fell confident enough then go ahead!i won't ever be doing it....so i may call you!

as long as the oil wells on the bottom can still hold the diff fluid and you aren't messing with caster i don't see a problem! just make sure to weld it right the first time!

-cutts-

 

Im going to weld in a new oil fill plug for oil...i have came across people that have heard of people doing a pumkin turn...but i have not found anyone that has actually done it. Ive heard the plug welds are made of very hard metal..so i may need to blast the welds out with a carbon arc.

 

I've never done it but have seen it done or rather the finished product, and it doesn't look to difficult, now I have narrowed 9in housings, and I don't imagine it is much different with the exception of they don't use the weld plug but instead a round weld, one thing though the axle tubes are pressed in on a Dana axle then welded so even after you cut the weld out you will stillhave to press the axle tube out, and back in, biggest thing is make sure they are straight when we did 9in housings we used a laser level shooting it through the housing at all sides to make sure everything was straight before, and after welding.

 

It would be ALOT less work to just turn the knuckles. either that or cut both of the tubes in the middle and use a sleeve to hook them back together. Besides, if you go "by the book" the axle tubes are non-reuseable once they've been pressed out.

Justin

 

It may sound crazy, but I'm going with hoxii. I cut my tubes on my D60 front after failing to remove enough metal from the knuckles to spin them. After cutting them I placed a sleave on the outside of the tube and welded the tubes themselves and ground them down and slid the sleave over and welded them. My truck is offroad only but I beat it's *** pleanty, tires in the air and all and no problems. Good luck with whatever you do.

RubberDuck

 

The truck is lifted 8". Its a 1/2 ton 76 stepside with custom drop brackets for the arms. cutting the knuckles would include re-doing the drop arm brackets, making custom coil perches ...then caster to worry about. Im thinking im up to a new challenge on turning the pumkin. I considered cutting my tubes and making sleeves...but you loose strength!!! Dont you?

Procedure : Remove the front end
Drill out the plugs
Re-install the front end
Use a hydrolic jack to lift up on the tip of the pumpkin to rotate into place
Tack weld
Remove the front end and weld up

Thoughts?

 

Sounds easy, if your motivated enough go at it. Let us know how it comes out.

RubberDuck

 

Yes. But a heavy enough sleeve properly welded on and it would not be a huge compromise. Heck, you could cut it, sleeve it, and incorporate the sleeves into a truss and it would be stronger than before. There is nothing wrong with your plan other than it is a major, major pita to do, especially right.

 

Now there is an idea, make your sleeves out of atleast .140 wall tubing and as long as you can, and still be able to weld both ends, and I would also cross drill the sleeve prior to installing , and weld the housing through the holes this will actually probably make it stonger, and then build a truss under the pumpkin, welded to the outsides of both sleeves and gusseted the length of the sleeve, basically make it like the back braces they use on 9in rears, and I bet you would find it was considerably stronger than the original axle tube, and this would eliminate the probabitlity of destroying the tubes while trying to press them out of the pumpkin, and back in

 

If I do a sleeve i would want to first weld the tube...then grind it smooth and slide the sleeve over the welded area...then weld the sleeve. This requires the sleeve to be on the tube first. Theres simply not enough room on the driver side.

 

Why not just drill holes in the sleeve and plug weld it along with welding the end?

Justin