I have a '94 E350 Club Wagon XL, and I notice that the lugs on the rear hubs are quite a bit longer than they need to be... presumably, this is to accomodate the extra thickness of dual wheels? Can duals be installed on this van without requiring additional parts (apart from fenders)? How would I tell for sure?

Additional problems discussed here:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/s...d.php?t=363752

Thanks in advance.

 

Gadget,

I don't think you can do it without the adaptors because the inside wheel is turned around with the dish toward the frame. I think the wheel / tire would hit the frame or springs before it was in far enough to bolt on.

Here is a site that you may not have seen that has wheels, adaptors and fenders for the dually conversion. Thier fender style is simalar to a late model Ford dually truck. There is another fender available that is much smaller and is like the very early Dodge duallies.

http://www.chromewheel.com/adaptors.htm

You will need to either convert the front of the van to dually tupe wheels or carry two spares.

Be carefull to avoid looking at the dually Suburban at the site above or you may end up shopping for another project vehicle!

Gene

 

You cannot just install a dually wheel because the rims have a 5" offset and the tire would be hitting the springs. But the adapters as mentioned above. I have and they are great. Love the dually!!! You would not believe how many people come to ask questions about it. Even my wife gets guys coming up to her while fueling asking about the dual wheels. No need to convert the front and no need to carry two spares. You have 4 tires in the back if one goes flat or you can always remove the adapters and ride on a single wheel spare until repaired correctly.

 

Do you have the fenders, and did you buy them in a kit, or modify a truck set?
I want to put in a truck dually axle, because it's wider, no spacers, and I want lower gears, the 3.50's are killing me in the city, I want 4.10.

 

I bought my fenders from a van place in NC. I saw their duallies for sale and called about buying a pair of fenders. You can also buy them from quigley for $600. Of course, they are for the newer body styles. The dual wheel adapters really work quite nicely and are a heck of a lot easier to install and probably cheapier than replacing the entire axle.

 

maples,
I'm not sure that you can use a dually axle from an F series. There have been several post in this forum stating that the E series chassis is wider thatn the F. Plus you would pay a premium for what will likely be a ragged out axle. The spacers that I have seen look to be well done and most are being sold as a souloution to the roll over problem. Considering the liability issues with making an aftermarket part to solve a major manufactures safety issue, I'm betting they have done their homework on them.

I mentioned the two spares before, and Adventure correctly points out that there si another way around the issue of a flat tire, but if you use the original front wheel tire combo you won't be able to rotate your tires front to back. Considering the cost of buying the dually style fronts with an alloy wheel plus the spacers for the front, you may come out ahead in the long run using the original style wheels on the front, especially if you have a pretty good set of four tires on it now. It would take a while to use up all of them on the front.

Gene

 

I'll get an axle from a box van maybe, I hate my gears, I need them lower, so I'm not wasting money dualling this one, and since I want gears, makes since to get them with the dually axle. I am not going to buy both an axle and spacers, that's far to expensive. I noticed dually trucks have adapters up front, that's how they are offset, go to the junkyards guys, there are many there.

 

I am impressed and very much interested in your dually project! I love it when I find somebody who has really done their homework. Do you have any digital photos you could email to me? Also any other info. - why you chose adventurevans and arrowcraft instead of other vendors? I hope to convert my 99 E350 this summer. I pull a 9500lb trailer with my standard length van and want the dually setup for safety.. . . Carl Brush, carlbikes667@cs.com, Gainesville, Florida

 

Sorry, I thought that I was sending a private message to Adventure!! Must have gotten confused with another forum. Anyway, Adventure, please respond. Thanks!

 

I have a number of photos but no means to post them. I picked AdventureVan fenders because of the look, my second choice would have been Quigley fenders. Evidently AdventureVans had a local fiberglass house make them a mold and ran off a few dozen fenders. Todd at AdventureVans was real pleasant to work with, but I don't think they sell fenders for a living. For the adapters I choose Arrowcraft because of their quality / construction. Quigley recommended them to me and AdventureVan also uses their adapaters (front and rear, I only chose the rear). Arrowcraft offered both the rims and adapters making the purchase easier. Using an offset rim was absolutely necessary otherwise the wheels would have really stuck out. As it is, the van is wide but not wider than a dually pickup. JC Whitney sells an adapter that goes between the two wheels, just didn't look like the best setup to me. If you are looking for stablization and not extra load, then the Arrowcrafts are the way to go. Cost me a little over $2000 including the tires. I needed new tires so I just decided to complete the whole project at once. Run 235s in the back. Only thing I didn't do myself was the paint and mount the fenders, had a local body shop do that.

 

You run 235's, what year van, my 99 has 245's?

 

Actually they are 225/75R16's. I misquoted above. The 245 is the standard tire but they are too wide for the dual wheel application. For the rears you need to go to a narrower tire and 225's are the standard for this purpose. I did keep the 245's in the front since the 245 E has a larger weight capacity than the 225 E.

 

Thank you, Adventure, for the information. Hopefully it will be my summer project!