Converting a '98 Dana 60 to passenger drop

[Seanreisk]

I hate asking a question that has been asked and answered many times (I'm sure I've even read it on these forums before), but I promise you I've tried searching for this information.

I have access to a 1998 Dodge Dana 60 ball joint front axle (driver's drop). Does anyone have any experience with doing the cut / sleeve / weld to convert it to a passenger side drop? Is there something else further down in the conversion that is going to keep it from working?

I'm having a hard time finding an 8-lug passenger drop Dana with discs. I've found some late 70's Ramcharger 5-lug Dana 44s, but nothing affordable in the 8-lug category.


I have named my truck Mammon, Eater of Wallets.

[Wildergarten]

I'm having a hard time finding an 8-lug passenger drop Dana with discs. I've found some late 70's Ramcharger 5-lug Dana 44s, but nothing affordable in the 8-lug category.

I had to convert a DRW Chevy axle. That included modifying the spring perches for the 1/2" difference in axle width. You can read about those tribulations on my build thread starting here: https://www.sweptline.org/forums/viewto ... 67#p304767

[Seanreisk]

Reading through all your notes - thanks very much!

But it's scaring me.

Based on my research on Dana 60s, the only thing I can say is that God made Jeep enthusiasts so that Sweptline owners (who are the most peaceable people on earth) would have someone to really hate every time they try to Google for parts.

[Wildergarten]

Reading through all your notes - thanks very much!

I have this thing about helping people in my own tortured sort of way. There's nothing particularly scary about what I did (other than dropping an axle on my hand) but it does require attention to detail AND persistence in dealing with suppliers.

[dodgeboykim]

As I own a 96 Dodge Ram with the Dana 60 front end to me converting that front end to RH drop is going to be a lot of work.
1. 98front end is a CAD axle to start.
2. Mods will have to be done to both sides of tubes and completely cut apart.
3. No provision on Diff casting for leaf springs.
4. As the front end currently sits for stock application in a 94 to 01/02 4x4 truck it uses coil springs and a 4 link set up.

Have you studied your potential axle for problems associated with trying to convert.

[Jim100]

I cant believe you cant fine a disc 8 lug dana 44. But I guess locally they can be rare and who wants to ship a thing like that.

[Seanreisk]

I cant believe you cant fine a disc 8 lug dana 44. But I guess locally they can be rare and who wants to ship a thing like that.

Two things are probably holding me up: I live in a sparsely populated area, and one of the major junk yards in my area told me that all of his Dana 44's went to Jeep machine shop (which means they've been picking the salvage yards for years). I have found a few Dana 44's and 60's, but I keep bumping into drum brakes, 5-lug hubs, they've been scavenged, or someone rammed the pumpkin into the core of the earth, etc., etc. I've found a few 70's parts trucks I could buy, but I'm scarce on space and have no place to put the truck while I pull the axle off. And I don't have a trailer, so paying $1,500 for the truck before paying for the gas, the guy with the trailer to pull it, etc. doesn't appeal to me.

It's a headache. Kinda fun, though - like a safari, where you're armed with a 1/2 Milwaukee impact wrench, a cable winch and Google.

[Seanreisk]

I just got a lead on a 78ish GM front Dana 44. Disc brakes, 8-lug. I have one person who says it will work, another person who says it won't.

But the big hang up is it has a 10 bolt with 3.73 gearing.

Is this doable? I know I have to change the gearing, but I'd like to come down from 4.10 to 3.54/3.55 front and back anyway. I feel like a moron asking these questions, but I have never had a differential apart in my life.

[Kaegi]

convert stock 44 to disk would be least amount of work.

[soopernaut]

The GM 10 bolt never came with a ratio of 3.54/3.55 and I don't know about aftermarket availability. The 8 lug versions only had a 4.10 and 4.56 gear available until around 1983. The 6 lug versions and the 1983 and later 8 lug versions had 2.56 (K10 only), 2.73 (K10 only), 3.07 (K10 only), 3.23 (K20 only), 3.42, 3.73, 4.10 (K20 only) and 4.56 (K20 only).

I wonder if those 5 lug Dana 44s can be converted to 8 lug by changing the spindles and everything outward from that.

[Seanreisk]

convert stock 44 to disk would be least amount of work.

Probably, but I like the idea of having the differential in my shop where I can disassemble it, clean it, change ratios, and then paint it over the winter. It would also allow me to look at crossover steering setups without as much crawling under the truck.

And during all this I still need to be able to move my truck around (my work space and parking budget is tight.)

[Seanreisk]

Around and around we go. Finally got to inspect the differential, it's not a Dana 44 (which the owner kept insisting it was), but a GM front differential. Which created another round of heated conversation amongst the 'experts'.

"You see? 10-bolt, that's GM!"
"10-bolt doesn't mean anything! They both have 10 bolts, the question is round shoulder or square shoulder!" This went on for a solid 20 minutes. Meanwhile, back in my carport, Mammon is laughing and waiting for me to change a tire that went flat.

A side note - this is a farming and logging region. Logging or farming is the big industry for a hundred miles in any direction, and we have a lot of professional welding and fabrication companies for the population. Number of welding / fabrication outfits that said they would cut and weld a front differential? Zero... They'll do it on a Cat, or a road grader, but not my truck.

Also, for people asking if I've considered converting my Dana 44 to discs, I have. But as I mentioned in the post above, I have to move cars around a lot, and what I want is to slide a finished differential into place, then take my drum brake Dana 44 and convert/rebuild it in case I want it for another truck or for trade bait.

Back to looking. Gonna start calling junkyards past the 240 mile range. I had a Dana 44 at the 200 mile range but the guy wanted $700 for it, which seemed steep. Turns out it was a 5-lug.

[Hobcobble]

viewtopic.php?f=32&t=43470

Is this of any help?
Know any good discounting LTL carriers?

John

[digdoug]

https://boise.craigslist.org/pts/d/weis ... 65024.html

[Seanreisk]

A small update - and a thank you to all the people who are pointing me to possible solutions or otherwise trying to help.

I've missed out on two axles, a Dana 44 and a Dana 60. The Dana 60 was heavily worn but intact, disc brake, I agreed to his price of $1000 which the guy accepted, and I drove out the next day to pick it up. He was 210 miles away, I sent him a text in the morning that I was on the road, jumped in the truck and drove through a lot of rural Idaho farmland that has no cell reception. Got there and the guy told me he sold it to someone else for $1300 but he was interested in my second offer... This makes me angry, but at the same time I'd feel kind of mopey if I told someone I'd sell them something at one price and the same day another guy comes and offers $300 more for the same part. I'd still sell it to the first guy, though.

The Dana 44 I flat-out missed, it listed over the holidays and I didn't have access to the web all the time, so it came and went before I could make an offer.

I did find out that there's a small shop in the region that does specialty fabrication for extreme 4x4's and rock crawlers, but that doesn't help me because they're the ones who are buying up all the front axles. The junk yards won't tell me who they are, but one admitted that this group has a standing offer for front axles and the other says they call every few months.

And now you can't even find a kit to convert an existing Dana 44. I'm hoping AAJ Brakes in Portland can lead me to someone doing the kits, I'm getting a bit wobbly-eyed at this point.

[PwrWgnDrvr]

That guy flat out breached an oral contract and damaged you for the cost of the trip and your day's lost wages.
A deal's a deal.....and he's a dick!

[Hobcobble]

That guy flat out breached an oral contract and damaged you for the cost of the trip and your day's lost wages.
A deal's a deal.....and he's a dick!

Agreed. You should have knocked his mailbox over on the way out of
his driveway.

John

[Seanreisk]

That guy flat out breached an oral contract and damaged you for the cost of the trip and your day's lost wages.
A deal's a deal.....and he's a dick!

Yeah, I was pretty pissed. But I didn't know where he lived, I called him when I got to the city limits and that's when he told me he sold it. Probably for the best, some of these old boys in rural Idaho are pretty ornery, and if it was face-to-face I might have gotten *#%^@ about it. You can't win an argument if you're dead on someone else's property.

It's ok, I have another lead. If it turns out to be another Ford axle I'll probably shoot myself.