hi, i have a 79 f-150 4x4 and a neighbor gave me a truck for free, unshure of the year but its at least a 3/4 ton 4x4, and i am prety shure it has the dana 60 front and rear, i was wondering how hard it would be to swap out the coils and dana 44 for the leafs and dana 60, i would also put the dana 60 rear in place of the 9" in my truck, just to make the gears match.
any sugestions are appreciated,
thanks

 

Hi big red, first of all you need to know for sure its a dana 60 thats a very rare option and its alot of trouble to change it over . It came mostly on 771/2- 79 with the snow fighter package. If its a heavy 44 Its not as strong as the 44 you have now its a low pinion standand rotation I wouldent go to the trouble of changing it. Look for the BOM numbers on the axle tube and post them and I can tell you what you have. Hope this helps Leadmic

 

Some of the guys that I pull with like the coil spring front suspension and turn their 1/2 tons into 1 tons. From what they tell me it is not really all that bad of a swap if you have the whole donor truck. The guys have also told me that you can do the swap in a weekend. It just takes a little time , patience and inginuity.

 

where do i find the numbers on the axle?
thanks

 

I have also thought about turning this half ton into a 3/4 or one ton. But i'm not even sure what front axle I have. I assume the rear is a 9". How do I know if the truck came with the heavy Dana 44? Any help would be great!!!

-Funkster-

 

If you are looking at the front axle tube from the front of the truck, the Bill Of Materials is faintly stamped to the left of the pumpkin. Sometimes you will find a date code as well, the BOM is to the left of that. They are hard to see so a wire bruch may be needed. Any 771/2+ BOM can be refrenced at the Dana/Spicer sight (I'll look for the link and post later if I find it...but a simple web search would probably turn it up).