If I remember right it was a later model ball joint D60 you installed in your pickup. How has it held up using it as you do, anything other than regular maintenance been required.

 

u planing a swap star

 

Eventually.....

 

when hi sid in a post about u joints that when ever hes breks a drive shaft or u jount he pulls out the rear drive shave shaft and drives home on his frount axle

 

i got a kingpin d60 in mine, dont use it as hard as dave but plow 10 or so driveways in the winter, and tow on and offroad with it. mines holds up good just keep it greased and maintained is the key, my buddy has a 94 works his pretty good we did ball joints u joints at 150,000 miles 'were org ball joints' but not u joints lol. but his it trouble free too, o we did have to rplace one spindle when he bout it PO let the bearing go and it tore up the spindle

 

My 60 is a 92 model.
Went through and replace everything, bearing and seal wise, installed a Trac Lok and new ball joints.
With the TracLok in the rear axle I really don't use the front axle till I get is some right nasty stuff.

Also when you look at my bed, the rear axle is carrying almost all of the load.
9 foot bed on a 133" wheelbase.
So far I have only replaced one tie rod end, and I think that was the one Ford did not have when we put it together.

In all seriousness, the 60 has already paid for it's self in repair savings from what I was spending on the 44 every year and tire wear savings.

The axle, rebuild and upgrades were right at 3000 dollars total cost when the axle went under the truck.
But I did have the best driveline guy in three states build it for me, he does all my driveline work.
He also built the axle in the rear that is standing up to me right fine.
The only thing I have broken on it since the rebuild was when I twisted the yoke off the pinion.
That was plain old part failure when it went.

When I started plowing at the mall, the guy asked if I ever plowed snow before.
Yeah, we plowed all the roads down on the farm, but I never plowed snow off the corn fields before.

Took a minute or two before that sank in and he realized what I meant.
My plowing involves acres.
Normal snow customers I do every snow I plow 7 or 8 acres.
Big snow, the phone never stops ringing for a week or two.

 

Well then I guess we can confirm that there is nothing wrong with a ball joint front end. If Dave can't kill one, nobody can.

Sucks that they never made a HP D60 front end with 3.08/3.07s. Although at this rate, it will be another 5 years before I even think of converting to 4wd. Who knows where I'll be by then. I'll probably just settle on a TTB D44HD since I only need it in the snow or some mild off roading.

My I beam suspension seems to be wearing my front tires just fine so far, so I can't complain. Just have to keep on top of the tire rotations.