Solid Axle Swap BS Thread

Are they stock birfs? You may have to clearence the inside of the knuckle ball if not. I would go searching or asking on marlins board or even pirate, TW is good for learning how to put chicken wire in place of your stock grill, not good for mini truck axle tech.

 

they're longfield TG birfs. we clearanced the knuckleball a little but like i said the only time that it binds up is when the spindle gets completely bolted down. I'm going to bet that the damn bushing is too tight around the birfield so that when the spindle gets pushed on its contacting it instead of being clearanced like .004" or whatever it is.

 

and you're right about the TW tech not being too great. most people on this site are just worried how many lightbars they have in relation to bull bars. but I have good confidence in the SAS bs thread. people in here have done this more times than me and have some experience (i'm hoping haha)

 

Thanks! This made me chuckle on a Friday morning!

 

Wish you were closer. I'd ride over and take a look

 

I think i might not have the shims spaced correctly to allow the knuckle to be lined up perfectly. so we're going to try to shim more on the bottom trunion. we have one shim on the top and one on the bottom right now.

 

The welder ive been borrowing is being a pain in the ass and fucking up, and im ready to burn the truck down and i needed some motivation. Last night i swung the axle under it and mocked up the tires and wheels:

And i ordered a Hobart 140.

 

And side shot:


I still don't think ill have to tub the firewall at all, maybe some pounding with a sledge. I need to flex test it but that may be the very last thing i do, keep in mind the axle is going to swing forward on compression. It looks tall as hell in the above posts front shot picture, probably because i squatted down to snap the pic, however its only 2"s or so taller then the rear.

 

Those SD axles are massive compared to the older D60s. The inner C's and knuckles are just huge. Plus they come with 35spline inner/outer shafts from factory (beef).

Ended up going with a king pin D60 because there's more aftermarket support for the mods I wanted to do to it...though things seem to be catching up for the SD axles.

What are your plans? Keeping the unit bearings or converting to rebuildable hubs?

 

That's the reason I chose the 05+ superduty axle, 35 spline factory and large knuckles.

I plan to keep the unit bearings for the time being, seen good luck with them and I think they will be good for street use (the aftermarket axles run the 99-04 unit bearing size) and the 05+ have a larger/updated unit bearing.

 

SD axles, especially after 05', are definitely pure beef.

However...there's more to using SD axles than I realized when I first started looking into getting one. If you got it yours for dirt cheap, then things will even out at the end quite well.

Among the challenges I found with SD axles is the super narrow spacing between the casting of the pumpkin and the inner C on the driver side. There's really not a lot of axle tube space to put suspension parts on. Nothing that a cut off wheel and lots of patience can't handle, lol, to expose more axle tube; but then you have to weld a shit ton around the areas of the casting, which means you better know what you're doing with the welder, etc. It's just more fab time and money than what it seems at first. BTW...good luck trying to build the axle around leaf springs. I'm sure it can be done but it would take quite a bit of creativity to make it work under a tacoma.

Then there's the unit bearings. You might be able to get away with using the existing unit bearings depending on how many miles they put on that axle, and whether they have play or not in them. But if you have to replace them, good quality ones from Currie or Spidertrax are like $400-500 EACH. Ouch, that's close to a grand just in the unit bearings. Maybe you could get cheaper ones from Vatozone, but I would not put those in a serious wheeling rig...maybe have them for spares? Dunno.

Pretty much all KOH race cars and custom buggies are running unit bearings because it is relatively faster to replace them than the old school rebuildable hubs. If they can survive those races, they must be good. The issue is that those race cars probably have sponsors that pay for all that expensive stuff! Also, custom axle manufacturers ship 1ton axles with unit bearings, so....

Then there's the brakes. If the calipers are shot, they are usually more expensive than the old D60. But they are bigger too (actually, they are MASSIVE), more braking power, so that's good.

Then you have to figure out the steering. Keeping the steering linkage in the stock location will probably not work. There's a guy on pirate that does the machining so that you can use high steer arms on your SD knuckles, and custom steering arms are actually included in his price. I think it's like $500 for labor for the two knuckles...arms included. Doesn't sound like much but things just keep adding up! - especially if you have to get new ball joints. Plus the materials for the tie rod and drag link. But that can be sourced cheap.

(Another option is to get Reid's SD steering knuckle. They only sell one, for the passenger side. That's $400 or so shipped)

Then there's locking hubs. Mixed reviews out there on whether the factory ones with the vacuum design are good or not for heavy wheeling. I think there are now aftermarket replacement locking hubs, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal. Maybe $250 bux for Warns? Dunno...

Then there's the gears and locker.

Then...If you have the "super 60" version of the axle, than thing is over 80" wide

So at the end you still have to dump some money on these SD axles to make them work. Some people just do minimum work to them, start using them and begin replacing things as they break/give trouble. Personally, I would just build the axle all the way from the get go and forget about it.

Anyway, everything has pros/cons. These are some of the issues I considered when I was shopping for axles. I got very close from buying a 2006 SD axle at some point, but decided to go with an older style D60 due to some changes on my build plans. The axle is now on my garage's floor fully built. The things is huge, and it blows my mind to realize that the SD D60 is bigger than what I have!

More companies are paying attention to these SD axles so I bet in the near future these things will be "the" axle of choice for many builds. It's still a massive axle, probably the last axle you'll ever build. If you can figure out all these issues on the cheap, then you'll be money ahead. Oh...and they have bigger ujoints too compared to the older D60. Can't beat having 35spline shafts all around with bigger joints from the factory.

 

Hell of a post! Thank you sir for all that info

 

I must have been bored out of my mind cause that was a long ass post

At the end of the day, now matter how you do it, going with 1tons is gonna cost $$$ if you do it right. True, you can swap a front stockish D60 (especially the newer SD ones) and go long ways without dumping a lot of cash on it, but still.

The words "1ton" and "cheap" rarely go together...and those who say the built it for cheap are lying

 

Haha I see you did your research as did I.

Replying in red

 

Dude, how in the world did you unload that monster of an axle by yourself with no lift! That's insane. I ended up borrowing an engine hoist from a friend, which made the job super easy of course. I think my D60, the way it is built, comes at about 525lbs

I was certainly referring to Weaver fabrication above. Guy has a great reputation and the prices are really good. That's what I would have done if I got a SD axle.

Yea, prices for kingpin D60s are ridiculous. Way more $$$ for the 79' ones, as those have more axle tube exposed on the driver's side. Mine is from a late 80's F350, which has less driver side tube exposed than the 79', but more than the SD. I guess it is somewhere in between the two. But it was enough tube exposed to weld shit on it relatively comfortably.

This is my axle.

 

Very "carefully" ha. I got it ratcheted out to the point of teetering then used my motorcycle ramp and had it almost to the ground all the way when the pallet got stuck so I just pulled the truck away and let it fall a foot. No harm done since the pallet took the force.

Looks like you're getting some good work done on yours

 

Impressive! I didn't even try unloading my axle without a hoist. But even if you dropped your to the ground by accident, even without a pallet, nothing would have happen to the axle. If anything, the floor would be damaged!

I kind of went a bit overkill with the axle. You know how sometimes when you start with a small upgrades and then get carried away LOL. Rebuilt the entire axle hub to hub, Got 35spline chromo shafts all around, air locker, etc.; and spent quite a bit of $$$$ on the steering arm/knuckle set up. The axle is built well. The only other thing I can do to it is add RCVs, but that ain't happening anytime time soon. Those are like 2 grand for the D60s

If you do...it better be a big ass axle to handle these newer bigger trucks!

 

Ha true. Hopefully I'll have some updates soon if I'm not stuck on this job site too long

 

While doing my summer maintenance on my truck, I had to change out a set of wheel bearings and a u-joint clip that were trashed (axle is a Dana 44 from a 1982 Jeep J10) on the driver side of the axle. When I went to reinstall the spindle and brake bracket, I managed to strip a stud/nut. I ordered 24 new studs and nuts from ECGS (mine are 3/8", GM standard studs) and I have managed to strip/fuck up about 6 or 7 of them trying to re-assemble this thing.

I start off by getting all 6 of the nuts snug, then I begin to torque them slowly (I start off at 55 ft/lbs., then go to 60 ft/lbs., and then the final 65 ft/lbs.) and I can consistently get 3 of the studs to all of these torque specs but the other ones won't even reach 55 ft/lbs. The nuts just keep spinning to the point where they destroy themselves and the studs. I have no idea what the issue is. Any input?