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I noticed some of the 80's and 90's bronco owners were converting there independent front suspensions to solid axles like the dana 44. Is this a strength and durability issue?
its a much debated topic i am sure searching on this forum woudl find you many posts about this topic. Swapping to a solid axle can more easily allow greater lift, and aslo alleviates the troubles with aligning the independant front suspension. A bigger axle .. as opposed to just the dana 44 could be swapped in, and this would definatly be a strength enhancement, along with bigger brakes from a 3/4 or 1 ton truck
thanks for the info. What axles do the 78 & 79 broncos have in them and how bout a 3/4 ton truck. Is there much work in the conversion. Basically I think the only thing that would be lost in the conversion would be a rougher ride and maybe a little ground clearance loss. I think the gain would be, as you said, better brakes, stronger front end, less alignment problems and also less moving parts which I'm a big fan of.
the 78/79's have a dana 44 front axle. you can also use out of an f150. 3/4 tons might have dana 60 front axles, but the problem is that they are all leaf spring, which opens up a new field of problems. broncograveyard sells a kit to swap in a solid dana 44, but its a bit pricey. this is good if u want a bolt in setup though. the main problems with the swap stem from radius arms and trac bar, which doesnt exist on our broncos. A bit of searching around here should find some very long threads with tons of input on the subject.
It is not avery hard conversion . In my case I did it for the height that I couldn't get with the TTB . I am currently in the proccess of swapping in a 1 ton setup , D60 and 10.25 .
Like Isky said the biggest issue is the track bar . The radius arms from the 78-79 can be used , just need to build your own radius arm mount .
Check out my SFO link in my SIG there are a bunch of pics in there of the suspension in my truck .
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