Solid Axle Swap BS Thread

Pic of the disks

 

Exo cages are ugly

 

They are ugly no matter what and I'm not a skilled enough fabricator to make mine anything but ugly as fuck too

...they are just so functional since a first gen has no room in the cab

 

Drilled your own rotors? Are you on a budget? Actually, i just looked again at the pic you posted and I see the lines you drew with a sharpie on the rotor as a guide to drill the holes haha.

So the braking improvement wasn't that great? Also, interesting to hear that old drum brakes were only 15 lbs heavier. Oh well...at least you have the bling factor now as disk brakes look cooler.

Good to hear that thate t100 master cyl works well.

Awesome pic! The axle clears the baby so it is all good

as long as you do not end up with a cage that looks like a spider web all over your truk haha

 

braking did improve just not as much as i expected. As far as weight goes it might be because my 14 only had the 12" brakes on it and not the newer heavier 13" brakes.

 

What the hell!

 

So you guys know the 14 bolt with a drain plug is manufactured by AAM instead of corporate.

 

Probably another reason why my Van 14Bolt is narrower than those of years past. So many damn variations with these things.

 

Yeah but they ran the same gears because GM wanted the same specs and ratios so it all worked out. Now if AAM would just make more gearing options for the HP steering 10.5's

 

Something lower than 5.38 huh? Honestly I would have preferred something lower, but the gear calculators tell me that I should have the same characteristics as my 4.10's and 35's. I can live with that, especially since she won't be seeing the highway that much, if ever.

 

Shit 5.38 would be perfect. They only make 4.56

 

Oh, factory gears.

 

No aftermarket options for lower than 4.56 either. For the AAM axle out of the dodges. Which sucks they are beafy as hell with good positioning of the diff

 

I think it is pretty cool that those versions of the 14bolt have a drain plug. I wouldn't mind having one in mine. And yep...it would be nice if the were gears lower than 5.38. That's one of the limitations of the Ford D60 and 14bolt combo. Both max out at 5.38.

The Chevy D60 and D70 rear combo has insanely low gears available for both of them, but then that front axle is low pinion and passenger side drop.

Everything has pros/cons I guess....

 

Who really needs lower than. 5.38 though?

 

Those of us with 40"s and an overly excited 4cyl under the hood

 

if you started with 4.10 then 5.39 gears you perfect for 40's just get a dual box no need to go fast

 

I went from 4.56s with IFS to 5.13s with 40"s. Bought the axles already geared with 5.13s. There's less than a 5% gearing difference between 5.13 and 5.38, so it wasn't worth it to me spending the money to regear them for such a small gain.

It is not terrible on the highway, I can live with it. For the trails I have a 2spd Atlas with 5.0 gears in it. Plenty low for me.

 

Yeah starting at 4.56 sucks

 

I've got 5.29s with 37s and the 3.4, love it!