9" floater
Thread Starter
|
Senior User
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 364
Likes: 0
From: Southern Delaware
9" floater
Has anyone had any luck with a 9" floater axle? Are they worth the investment? with the weight and ground clearance savings, they seem like a good idea. the 9" is a great axle for strength and making it full floater would be ideal. Any suggestions for a home brew-job? Any response is appeciated. Thanks
Post Fiend
Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 6,948
Likes: 44
Not too much you are gonna be able to do at home. Different axles. Floaters do nat have a flange and are splined on both ends. Gonna need a spindle and a hub and drive slug that accomodates the new axle, rotors because you would not do this upgrade and try to machine a drum to fit the hub. Rotor hardware and calipers, bearings and seals. Starts getting pretty spendy. For a truck application you could get more strength from a larger axle that is already a full floater and shave the diff for better ground clearance.
A typical shaved rear axle can be made to be almost an inch better than the 9" housing.
Dollar for dolllar I think this is why we do not see to many 9" floaters out there.
The circle track guys just about all run them, because they require less horsepower to turn.
Might look at some circle track mags and sites for the classifieds, might be able to find some "gold" out there somewhere.
A typical shaved rear axle can be made to be almost an inch better than the 9" housing.
Dollar for dolllar I think this is why we do not see to many 9" floaters out there.
The circle track guys just about all run them, because they require less horsepower to turn.
Might look at some circle track mags and sites for the classifieds, might be able to find some "gold" out there somewhere.
Post Fiend
Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 6,948
Likes: 44
That would make axle selection very difficult, since the axle for the 60 bolts up to the hub. Axle length would more than likely have to be modified, since the spline count and diameter are different, and unless you changed the hub to accomodate the old wheels, you would still have 8 lugs in the back and five up front. Still you would be stuck with heavy drum brakes, so dropping some coin to swap those would be necessary. That would also require buying a 60 for parts, so as long as you did that, you might as well just bolt a 60, or 70 under there.
Would spend way more money than just installing another complete axle under there.
Would spend way more money than just installing another complete axle under there.
Junior User
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 51
Likes: 0
I'm lookin at speedway.com and tryin to find out what spline count on the outer axles are a see what i need to make them work. If you want to use the dana 60 parts you need to find the 35 spline axle and upgrade your 9" to 35spline. when you see a semi floater 60 they have taken a dana 60 cut it to lenght welded big bearin 9" ends to it and used 35 spline 9" axles I'm trying to get a price from warn on just the axles from the kit they sell for my 76' bronco. The main cost i'm lookin at is the axles if you want to start spiltin hairs the 9" has a better tooth contact than a 60 or 70 when you get a low gear set such as 4.88 and lower. look a hi9.com they have a lot of info on the 9"
