i bought me a peice of 9" cold roll, me and a buddy are going to start on it saturday, ill take some pics and post them if anyone is interestred. im going to get the hubs off another truck to take to the machine shop, bolt the hubs and spacers. put new seals and bearings and just swap hubs when im ready. i have a regular dually bed that im gonig to paint to match my truck it needs a new fender real bad and the other one can wait. then ill start building my wrap around bumper and make it clean and as factory looking as possible. i have alredy looked at doing a 4x4 swap, but on a 2wd frame its different so i dont think i will be attempting that. i used to have a 4x4 frame that my truck would fit on, but i scraped it when junk was high.

 

and cab lights, then stacks. its going to look good

 

I'll offer some advice on adapter design:

The SRW wheels are lug centric and the DRW wheels are hub centric. Hub centric can take more load. You'll want your adapter to use hub centric.

Cut a pilot into the back of the adapter so the axle hub can center the adapter. Make the adapter long enough and put a boss on the outside, so that the pilot hole in the wheel rests on the adapter. That way the pilots will carry the load, not the lug studs.

You don't want the lug studs to go all the way through. Arrow did this at first and had problems with busted studs. You want one set of 8 studs that secure the adapter to the hub, and another set of 8 to secure the wheels to the adapter. You only want about 3/4" of metal behind the lug nuts so cut deep counter-bores for the lug nuts. This way the distance that the stud is under load is less, and the flex will be less. Use flat face nuts, not tapered since you've got a pilot to center the hub. Repeat the same thing going the other way for the lug studs for the wheels. Same thing, you don't want them under load for a long ways so that the flex is less.

Also note that there is a roll pin that makes the DRW wheels go on one position. You'll need to put a hole in for that too. This is so that the valve stem on the inside wheel will line up with a hole for the outside tire.

 

the factory hub is right on 4 inches long which i was planning to make the adapters 4" it will be hard to build a rest for the center of the wheel like you are saying i think i will need to make the center holes bigger in the rim. , or i can make my adapter longer like 4-1/2 long so i can machine a lip for the rim center hole to set in. i will be doing some major thinking tonight when im asleep. and the roll pin really makes it easy to not screw things up like you say. my adapter is going to be like a H so i wont have to bore deep holes in both ends to make it work. i will post pictures as best i can maybe even youtube it.

 

the flat lug nuts are 4 bucks each at the auto zone. i have 16 and need 32 more!!!!! ahhh, i might have to run with half of the nuts till i can afford more lol. i am going to rob all the studs i need from the axles i have laying around my house. i have simulators for the rear alredy. i got 5 rims, need one more. im just going to buy new front rotors with the adapters made on them. i would like to buy a set of factory aluminum dually wheels does anyone have a set? now im wondering how im going to make the center pilot tight and strong at the same time. ill figure it out.

 

Where have you found front dually hubs?

I'm doing a 4X2 to 4X4 and I need DRW hubs since I've only seen SRW axles in my searches.

 

im in Houston and a friend has a DRW rearend for sale email is jeffjh04@hotmail.com

 

i think the 4x4 front axles are all the same they just have a spacer that bolts on, these spacers are hard to find. since there werent many 4x4 dually trucks running around our body style. i know where one is that i can look at and tell you if the axles are different or just has bolt on spacers. someone told me that rock crawler websites are the best place to find these front spacers but i have not looked there yet. how are you going to go about mounting the front spring hanger on your truck?? i have a d60 4 door 4x4 truck diesel auto with t-case all in tact. if you looking for some parts tell me.

 

DRW hubs are different:



I don't think they were ever on our trucks because I don't think Ford made DRW 4X4 in a OBS after ~1990.

 

Joe, they did make 4x4 OBS duallys. Think of all the plow trucks up north, etc. They are the same axle (single wheel and dually) The only thing diferent is the bearing hub as pictured. The spindle and bearing spacing is the same. In the pic you posted, you could take that hub and rotor assembly off, and put a single wheel hub and rotor on and you are good to go. It's all same same, just different spacing for the lugs.

 

I've heard multiple claims that there were no factory DRW OBS 4X4 trucks. The claim is that they were built as 4x4 SRW trucks and then converted to DRW by Manning.

Yeah, I'm familiar with the different hubs. I'm looking for a set right now since I'm going to be converting my DRW truck to 4X4.

 

theres one for sale on ebay right now
eBay Motors: Ford : F-350 (item 220350759089 end time Feb-04-09 08:22:59 PST)
we should ask the guy to take the front wheels off and take pics of the front hubs... lol

 

red interior... yuk

 

me and my buddy got a piece of material that we got for free and thought it was 4140 and started to machine my spacers but found out that it was cast iron and i didnt want to use cast iron. went to the junk yard and found me a dana 80 rear end that will fit. the guy wants 1.000 bucks for it. it has the 8-6.5 bolt pattern 3.54 gear ratio. its the correct length. which is 73 inches by the way. the single wheel rear is 65 inches long. the dana 80 i know is supposed to be the bad daddy of 1-ton rear ends. but is it really all that great? i found another dana 80 with the big wheel bearings 10 lugs and 5.13 gears for 1,100 bucks... but i dont know if i want all that. and i still dont know about the speedometer tone ring-sensor is going to work correctly? does the dodge and ford have a different tone ring? i would have to have my driveshaft modified and put a bigger ujoint in it. my other option still is to find a 10.25 rear and that way i will have lots of parts spare ring and pinions, bearings, hubs. but on the other hand i have never seen one blow up so i still dont know what to do. wheres the "flip-a-coin" buddy icon?

 

My trucks one................