hi,i have a 88 f250 extended cab fi 460 4x4.it is a very dependable truck as everything is rebuilt or new.my problem is i use it to tow my truck camper (3000lb) about 1000 miles total a year boating or deer hunting so getting a newer truck or buying a dually isnt feasable.i have helper springs on it and i believe i am within its towing range.what i do have is sway going down the road not extremly bad but it is something you better pay attention to.i thought if i could put dually tires on it that it would take the sway out,also if a tire was to go -boom-it would be more controllable.it has 8 bolts in the center of the axle and looks like a 1 ton.i would like some opinions and information would be great..thanks in advance.

 

Single or dual axle trailer and do you run a sway bar with the camper? If not might be a better, cheaper and easier option.
That and loading the camper different might be enough to correct the problem, sway is often created by the load carried to far back on the trailer itself.

If you have a couple of heavier items, or several small ones you normally stow toward the rear, if you could move them further forward, forward of the axle a tad, that might be enough to completely eliminate the tendency for it to sway.

I always remind my wife, load heavy stuff down low and forward, lighter stuff can ride up high and toward the rear, and try and make it even side to side!

 

"8 bolts in the center of the axle" is a dead-giveway for a full-floater axle, and since it's an '88 truck (has RABS, needs VVS in axle, not sure if the D60 rears ever got that) I suspect you have a 10.25" Sterling axle, which is a great axe and it was also used on both SRW and DRW 1-ton trucks. There is one "minor" detail tho - the dually-specific axle is 4" wider than the SRW-specific axle, this is done to accommodate for the deeper-dish dually wheels - in other words if you attempt to directly bolt dually wheels in place of your singles now, then the inboard pair of wheels will hit the leaf springs. Two ways to go around that, either bolt-on some 2"- or 3"-thick spacers on the drums and then bolt the dually wheels onto those, or swap in a complete dually-specific rear axle. Then for the front you just need a pair of Arrowcraft hub extenders, which will run you under $350 if you buy directly from them.

However, dual wheels won't help you much with sway, they do make the truck way more stable yes but to take full advantage of them you need rear a swaybar - just a factory setup from a junkyard will do fine, no need for high-dollar aftermarket stuff (if it even exists).

 

thanks for the replys.first thing is its a slide in truck camper,not a trailer behind me.its in my bed.so it is a little top heavy.LCAM if i understand you right i can get a spacer to put on and then just add my tires?also why do i need to do anything to the front?does something change when you mess with the back?ill look around for a sway bar(didnt think about that)but like i said im also intrested in taking some of the scare out of a blown tire.4 has to be better than 2.im not trying to get more towing capacity or trick my truck into doing something its not cappable of,i thought that the added tire and width would make it go a little straighter--thanks again for getting back.

 

Yes, there is a spacer that can be bolted on the hub flanges to move the wheel-mating surfaces outboard so the inboard wheels clear the rear springs - take a look at this pic I borrowed from our diesel sub-forum, that silver thing with its own studs is the dually adapter:

Short of swapping in a factory dually axle from a pickup-bed truck this is by far the easiest way of going to dual rear wheels. There is some concern as to how the wheel bearing life is affected by having the wheels further off-center on the hubs like that, but it pretty much only an issue if you haul heavy, in your case I wouldn't be much concerned about it. Still, do read this thread here, it's probably more information than you ever wanted to know about this conversion:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/6...n-a-f-250.html

As for the front axle - there is no need for doing any changes there, I see trucks like that all the time with single front wheels dually rears, however if you do get a flat you'll want to carry two spare wheels as the dually wheels will not fit on the front axle. Single wheels will fin on the rear axle if you pull the duals off, but the lugnuts are different... Honestly I see no issue with carrying two spare wheels, I do it all the time and I have factory dually truck to begin with, but from a convenience standpoint it would be nice to have dually-specific wheels all around. It's your call really, can you live with carrying another spare wheel?

 

once again i thank you,this is exactly what i was wanting to know.i only take this out during boating and deer hunting season but it would be nice to drive without puckering my seat.im not worried about the bearings as it doesnt see 1000 miles a year and im not overloading it at all.as for the tire i didnt realize that is what i was needing to change in your first post to make all wheels work,i can live with an extra tire,might mount it to the front.i think it will be worth the effort and money to make it a dually as another vehicle doesnt make sense.i already have this one in top shape.thanks again for your effort and pictures!

 

not a trailer behind me.its in my bed.so it is a little top heavy

I see, when you said "tow" in there with it I figured you meant a trailer.

Make sure your truck has sway bars front and rear, we used slide in's for a long time before we changed to trailers.
Last one we had was an 11 1/2 footer weighted in at 4010lbs empty. I carried it on our 87 F-250 with no problem with its SRW axle. It has large front and rear sway bars on it.

Some trucks don't have them or only have them on the rear, worth installing even if you do go to DRW setup. The extra added width you gain from the duel wheels won't help any if it doesn't have those sway bars.

One extra benefit of drw is if you blow one carrying a load, it won't drop to the rim on ya.

I didn't put on 1000 miles, some wheres around 500 a summer or so, I just made sure I kept fresh tires on it. New/fresh tires are still no guarantee of no blow outs but narrowed it enough for me.

 

In that case these rear adapters will work good for you. And spare on the front works fine, that's where one of mine is (on a home-made bumper tho), my other spare used to ride on the 5th wheel hitch but with the slide-in I'll have to make a rack for it to go on the back of the camper, for now it just kinda lays on the floor where the table normally goes

That would be 11-1/2ft measure from the front wall behind the truck cab to the rear wall at the door, right?

 

That would be 11-1/2ft measure from the front wall behind the truck cab to the rear wall at the door, right?

Yea had to remove the tailgate to use it kinda deal, in fact when you where in the bathroom inside it, you where not actually in or on the truck at that point. That was in the section of the camper beyond the box floor on one side, other side was the dinette, most of it but not all.

 

there are a couple advantages of the front dually adapters (or D60 dually hubs if you'd rather)
1.i noticed a gained turning radius.im still not sure how or why.but i can now turn around the local dunken donuts drive through without the need to back up and give it a straighter shot.im loving that added bonus! even though i was told it wouldn't help nor hurt it.it clearly turns tighter/sharper now.perhaps its thanks to using the 2wd offset dually rims?
2.tire rotations.(you can figure the savings of remount/balancing and benefit of swapping front to rear over just a two crisscross front)
3.style.its just cleaner looking having the complete dually conversion.two spares? i dont even carry 1 spare now lol.i can swap-would suck sure,but it beats frigging with carrying any.

anyway.i totally agree.with the little use your using it for.your without doubt just looking for:
1.rear dually adapters.
2.4 dually rims.

 

crisscross tire rotations don't really work good on a dually tho - I for one like to run highway tires on the front and all-terrains on the rear cause I have no use for A/Ts in the front (2wd) but steer tires on the drive axle would get me stuck about everywhere. There is also the matter where my fronts and rears are different size, 265/75 fronts and 235/85 rears - same diameter but different width, so my spares are 235/85s and I can use them all around, if I had 265/75s as spares they would touch sidewalls on the rear axle which ain't good.

 

Im curious, if the truck came with the HD rear end that can take the duallys do you need any adapter or do they simply bolt right on in place of the regular wheels?

 

The adapters are needed only because without them the inboard wheels will not clear the leaf springs. Both the light-duty (semi-floater) Sterling and the HD (full-floater) Sterling axles will have that issue, really any SRW axle will be like that just cause of the geometry of the dually wheels. The only way to not need the adapters is if you have a dually-specific axle for pickup-bed truck under your SRW truck, which will be very easy to notice as your rear wheels will be sticking out good 2".

 

i want to see a picture of this.... a dually wheel on a srw axle... and i want to see a pic of the spring perches with a tape measure going from outside perch to the outside of the other perch

for both axles...... but the most important is the dually wheel on a srw truck

 

Ah makes sense now.

While were at it, are the lugs any longer or the stock SRW are fine?