Has anyone done a Dana 60 front axle swap on a early 77 f250 Highboy 4X4? I plan on or hope to swap out my Dana 44 with a Dana 60 front axle. The question I need help with are:

1. Did Ford ever make a Dana 60 Low pinion open knuckle front axle? If there is no such animal will the high pinion Dana 60 work off of a 78 or 79 ? Im just concerned about dive shaft angles and stress to the rest of the drive line.

If anyone has done it please let me know how it went and any advice would be greatly appreciated


77 F250 4X4

 

I think ford made them in 76-771/2. Another option is to install a married transfer case with the high pinion 60. This combo has little or no front drive line angle plus more ground clearance up front and reverse rotation ring and pinion thats alot stronger. Just a thought.
Leadmic

 

If you cant find the low pinion dont worry. The 78/9 high pinion D60 bolts right in, reduces your front diveline angle and is a stronger axle to boot.

I just did the same swap, taking out my low pinion 44 and installing the 79 D60. Your only problem may be that the front driveline MIGHT need to be shortened due to the higher mounting point.

-Scouder

 

Thanks Leadmic and Scouder. Scouder I kninda figured it would turn out like that. I have about 5 inchs of suspention lift give or take 1 inch. It seems the angle would be better with the high pinion anyways. I will probabley have to cut down the drive shaft abit. Scouder are you running the stock power assist steering in your 76? I want to do the 78 or 79 f250 4x4 steering set up on mine. I haven't had any problems with mine except for the driver side tire likes to rub on the valving assembly on right turns. Im restricked on tire size because of it. I have access to 2 Dana 60 high pinions and the steering parts to do the swap.

77 F250 4X4

 

Go for the 78-79 high pinion Dana 60 BOM# 610023. This is the king. 35 spline shafts, stronger gears, and the high pinion to boot. Sure the front driveshaft needs to be shorter but go for the beef. Go to 1350 or 1410 ujoints. I went the 1410 route. I did this on my '70 F250. I guess its more of a 350 or 450 now. I have a 605205 D70-1U in the rear, a NP203/205 doubler xfer case, a Clark 5 speed dump truck trans, and a 460 EFI engine. I have Detroit lockers front and rear. My steering was converted before I got the truck. The only mods were to the drag link and the header collector pipe (and the front driveshaft). The driveshaft is almost horizontal (a good thing!). The drag link setup on mine was very different than the D60. The pitman arm I have has been cut and welded. The 72 truck I have does not have PS do I don't know what it looked like. I cut the drag link and welded a piece of 1/4" plate steel to drop it. Works great. I tested it severely off road before the highway. A custom crossover sterring system would be the best. You would have to send you passenger side steering knuckle to Dynatrac or somebody to be milled falt and have holes drilled and tapped.

Oh that's another thing. The kingpin design is much stronger than the later balljoint design. Haven't heard of a kingpin design breaking. Balljoints are not beef-able.

Go for the axle and fix the small stuff. Most of the earlier D60 fronts for Ford were the enclosed knuckle design. These are weaker axleshafts and weaker ujoints.

I do mostly rock crawling and have pulled out many a fragged Chevy and Jeep from a deep canyon where I hunt in the Texas hill country.

Where are you located? Most of the 610023 axles (The Snowfighter) are up north. Scarce as hens teeth in Texas.

Check out these sites:

http://www2.dana.com/expert/
Select light axles

http://www.patooyee.com/Dana/By%20BoMN.htm
A great site.

Let me know if you want to talk about this more.

Russ Herring
herring@texas.net

Alias:
Ledgeclimber

 

No stock power assist for me. I decided to put in an AGR rock ram system with their saginaw box and a crossover steering. You can, however, put the 78/9 power steering system in your truck if you wish. There are plenty of guys that have done it and I dont imagine that its that big of a project.

-Scouder