My "new" excursion has 140k miles on it and needs new ball joints. With the fantastic vacuum hubs and all the required seals this really becomes a pain in the butt for me over my dodge dana 60 for the same job. In light of this I got a quote for doing the work at a local 4x4 shop. For the cost of doing the ball joints correctly I can get a used dana 60 out of a 2004 f250 with 40k miles on it, same gears. If my unit bearings are bad then the price goes up and the D60 is even cheaper. So will that dana 60 bolt right in place of the dana 50 we have? Spring width, wheel mount surface width exct all the same?
thanks

 

I never heard of any changes to the spring mounts or anything when the Super Dutys got the D60. Since the front end is the same I would go out on a limb and say, yes, they will swap. However, I would do some measuring especially concerning the steering components.

 

don't the newer f250's and 350's have 10.25 sterlings rather than D60's? correct me if i'm wrong, i'm new to this world (just 15 and more into the older fords)

 

I'm going to measure the spring width and just eyeball to see that the steering setup is run the same way. Other then that I'll just hope the wheel mount to wheel mount is the same as well as some of the knuckle stuff like rotors, caliper mounts, wheel speed sensor hole etc.


I have never heard of a sterling 10.x being used as a front axel but I have been wrong before.

 

nope, i'll take that as my error, haha. I must have been thinking of the rear, i just remmember about them switching to the 10.25's from the 60's in late 90's or something like that. Good luck with the swap, it should be pretty straight forward.

 

I piked up the D60 today. It looks so far like everything is the same. I'll post up more info when I get further with it if anyone else is strange enough to try the same thing.

 

Yes, please keep us informed on the swap....

This would be a good mod for those of us who need a stronger front end. Plus, it's harder to find upgrades for the 50.

 

I'm strange enough! ha ha... have a D60 with 4.10 gears waiting to go on my X. Just not ready to put it on yet. Need to get a million other things done to it first. I will be following this thread to see what I'm up against...

 

Glad I'm not the only one who does things just because I can.

 

Sorry for the long wait. The D60 is in. Its a direct bolt up. The only varyable is the u-joint yoke off the pinion. From what I can find out ford used lots of different ones on the D60. I got lucky and got a 1350 yoke. I was having a new front drive shaft made anyway using 1350's so it all worked out. width, spring perches ect are all the same. Easy enough to do. Any questions just ask.

 

as it turns out now that I finished the lift tonight. The lugs are a diffrent thread. The stock excursion is a 14x2 while the 04 f250 d60 is a 14x1.5 It just so happend that the new wheels came with a 14x1.5 and I had no idea that they were "wrong" and just happened to fit the front.

 

yeah i ran into the thread issue when swaping wheels with a '00 excursion had to buy new lugs for both to be able to swap the wheels(20s for stockers)