I was driving around tonight, and saw a 73-76 F250 4x4 Highboy (I know it was older than my 77 because it had clear signals and the F250 emblems on the fenders rather than the cowl), and anyway, as I was driving by in my Dodge Avenger, I got a great look at the front axle, since that's about the level I was sitting at...... It didn't look like any front axle I'd ever seen under a highboy before (it had open knuckles), so I drove around the block, stopped and looked at it with my maglight (I hope the owner didn't think I had bad intentions), and it had the open knuckles and drum brakes. When I first saw it, I thought it was a swap from a later truck (hence the open knuckles) and would have disc brakes, but when I realized it had drums, I really didn't have any idea...... is this the Dana 60 that I occasionally hear was availible? All I know is I've been looking at buying a highboy, and my buddy has a '75, and none of their axles looked like this one. I would just like to know what's out there. Thanks for reading this far and satisfying my curiosity. By the way, I searched, and didn't find what I wanted to know.

 

Also, I just remembered, it had a tag on the back of the bed which said "camper"...... and I also realized that I forgot to look for an external steering cylinder, which would have been helpful to know about....

 

my buddie's 76 has an open knuckle low pinion 44 with discs......its really hard to tell without having a number off of it, or seeing it in person

 

my 76 has a open nuckle with disc it was put in after the original owner bent the front closed nuckle front I'll check my 76 parts truck to see what it has.

 

i have a 73 ford f100. and my truck has open knuckles and drum brakes. and it is a high boy.

 

HI
"Highboy" is a term for the 59-76 F250 4x4 ONLY. 1/2 ton F100's are NOT considered highboys!

As for that axle, are you sure it has drum brakes? Ive seen 3 axle types on the old highboys:

1) HD 44 open knuckle with DISC brakes
2) HD CLOSED knuckle with drum brakes--this is the BIG ball frontend
3) LD closed knuckle with drum brakes--this is the SMALL ball frontend

As far as I know, this is all that was offered--outside of the RARER dana 60! The older dana 60's usually came with 4.56 gears too!

Anything else is a oddball swap--Hope this helps!

regards
Ben