I've had everything laying around to do my 4x4 conversion for about two weeks now. I got home from work about 2pm on sunday, ate lunch, walked outside, and promptly put my truck up on stands. I was just planning on soaking everything down with rust eater and inspecting parts. Anyway, it's up in the air and I look. This has to be the cleanest most rust-free undercarriage I have EVER seen. I grabbed a wrench (just wanting to see if everything would break loose, I was gonna tighten it all back up, honest ). Everything comes apart like I was meant to start the swap that day.

I started at about 3 and by 5 I had the old axle out, the new one in place, the spindles and steering installed, and the old shocks out. This all working alone. I had someone lined up to help, but since this was all spur of the moment he happened to be at work. About 5 the sun started to go down and it got REALLY cold REALLY fast, so i cleaned up for the day.

Monday was president's day, so no school I'm out there at 9 am, figuring out what i need (brake pads, two shock bolts), run to autozone and the hardware store, and start working about 10:30. The P/S goes together perfectly. This is about noon.

The D/S was another issue. The lockout wouldn't go in. It would go in the rotor (barely) and go over the splines, but not when the rotor was installed. Turns out the snout off of the rotor is SEVERELY bent, probably hit a rock or something. $50 later I have a new rotor and hub and have it all in by 3:30 (had to go 15 miles for the hub and rotor at the price i was willing to pay).

At this point I clean up since i need to be somewhere by 5.

Today after school I put the lockouts on, filled the diff with gear lube, greased the front end, and ran it around the block.

No funny noises, no jerks, no nothing. To top it all off it even tracks straight down the street. I'm still goign to do a full alignment, but I was expecting some crazy stuff.

Only issue is is now it looks like I have 1,000 lbs in the bed since he nose rides so high I was expecting some ride height increase, but not a full 4".

Tomorrow I'm setting the axle ride height and might swap rear ends, depends on the homework load.

Justin

 

the rearend isssue is easy ford used a 2in block to lift the rear of the 4x4 just find a 4x4 in the junk yard and grab the 2 blocks, and longer ubolts, your all set

 

OK hox, where's the pics???

 

It was all last minute so they guy that was going to help me was the one with the camera, so no pics of this part. I'm going to be partially dropping the axle back out later so i can reset the ride height, try to get some pics then.

In the rear I'm doing it right and swapping the 3" wide leaf springs and factory lift blocks onto my truck, so i have to wait for the local hardware store to get there order. I need (16) 7/16" grade 8 nuts and bolts for the swap and no one around me keeps boxes of them in stock. I'm also going to put an overload spring in the rear to pick up a little more height since i'm going to have to lift the front almost an inch to get everything level.

The rear end is sitting there with the leaf springs right next to it, just waiting for the order to come in. . .

Justin

 

Even with the factory blocks in place, my F100 sat like this:

4" nose high....

It also wouldn't come anywhere near close to aligning with factory cams... I ended up taking the torch to the springs(tried a couple different sets) to make it sit level....
I've yet to swap in the 4x4 rear springs however...

 

i think the 2wd coil buckets may be down lower

 

Nope, 80-96 F150 front suspension mounting points are all the same, coil buckets are the same part #... I'm just thinking the rear springs may have been de-arched... it was a low riding 2wd when I got it...

 

4x2 buckets are almost twice as tall as 4x4 buckets. it's an easy way to pick up about 1-1.5" in the front. I used the 4x4 buckets, i might swap to the 4x2 buckets if i want a little lift. I'm going to move the spacer for the overload spring to the bottom of the axle in the rear to pick up about an inch, the 4x2 buckets would make it ride right again if i do that.

Justin

 

By buckets i mean the lower coil cups,.

Justin

 

Those would be the coil seats... Coil buckets, for the most part are the top bracket that's tied to the frame somehow...
I'm running the 4x4 seats, I looked at swapping to the 2wd ones, but, that would just have made my alignment problems worse...

 

I asked about this same swap and got almost no responses. I want to do this to my 88 as the body and frame are in great shape. I'm going to look for a donor 88-91 4x4 this spring to steal the front end/drivetrain from. I'd like to find one with a transfer case that will bolt up to a C6, did they make such a beast?

Sure, I could sell my truck and go out and by a 4x4, but where's the challenge in that??? Go forth my friend and prove the nay sayer's wrong....LOL...I can't wait to make my truck a 4x4, it sounds like fun work. would any 1980 and up 4x4 drivetrain work?

I was told I would "never finish" my 63 Mercury when I bought it at the age of 22, its sitting in my driveway with a mod'd 94 5.0 HO under the hood, it looks and drives great too. I'm 27 now...hehe::

 

Any 80-96 f150 or fullsize bronco can be robbed to do the conversion. All ford transfer cases have the same input and bolt pattern, but you'd be best off finding a donor truck with a c6 already hooked to a case (otherwise it involves completely disassembling your C6 to put a tailshaft in it). It's actually very easy to do. When i'm done i'm probably going to have about 20 hours in the swap (ran into some **slight** issues). Like right now i'm waiting for a u-joint to come in since the rear end in my donor truck had been swapped out before, so it has a different yoke on it than other trucks.

The way I look at it is when i'm done I'm going to have a $2000 truck but the ENTIRE driveline is going to be like new. From engine to brakes everything is going to be fresh. Sure beats spending 2k on a 4x4 that i have no idea how bad it's been abused in the past.

I could have done the conversion for $200 (a transmission rebuild kit and 4 u-joints), but if i'm gonna do it, i'm gonna do it right.

Justin

 

If you are getting a donor truck, stay away from 87-5/88 trucks, they have flange mount hubs, which are a $300 a piece dealer only item... And, they also use oddball stub axles, brake rotors, and wheel bearings...
An 85-up donor should have the same style brake calipers as are existing on your truck, older use a different mount setup, but, I've never actually checked to see if it's just the mount, or the caliper itself that's different too...

 

you talking about a f150 or f350? cause i swapped my D50 outta my 85 and slammed a 88 D60 up front with no problems...bearings, hubs were all the same!

-jason-

 

The '87 f-150 uses one year only parts from the knuckle out. major pita and BIG $$$.

And are you sure about the'85 up on the brakes? i think it's actually '86 up since I swapped the complete brake setup off of my '85 onto the '80 axles (minus rotors, of course)

Justin