I bought this old, admittedly ugly now, 2wd long bed truck mainly because it has a great sounding and running 12v Cummins in it that has never been modified. It has right at 200k miles on it and literally, the oil really doesn't look dirty at 5k miles on a change. I don't know the gear ratio, but it does seem to have a Dana 60 rear axle; at least it says so. Um, did I mention that was pretty well all the "good" things about the truck? Yeah, my wife is having a field day with me about it now.

Automatic transmission went out on the way home. Wonderful. With a TPS also needed, a friend's local tranny shop rebuilt it for me. That doubled the amount of money I paid for the truck. So, at that point, I had $3400 in the truck. It drove a bit 'odd', and I noticed it had 4 different size tires on it. Sure, at first glance, they all looked good and had tread, but no two matched. Another friend with a tire shop hooked me up with the OEM sized tires; using Toyo Open Country MT tires for a nickel. So I now have $3900 in my truck. Next morning there's this big puddle of steering fluid and engine oil under the driver's side front. Rebuilt vacuum pump and steering pump from Rock auto installed and now I have $4300 in this truck.

I take it out for a drive and, besides the freaking gazillion squeaks, it runs great but still doesn't quite feel right and the brakes pulse (yeah, pads and rotors, no biggie I thought). As I'm pulling down my driveway I steer right and left sort of hard to see what I feel. Holy crap! It goes everywhere!! Picking the front of the truck up with my forklift and pulling it into my barn (tail between my legs), I find the dang drag link hanger fell off the steering! Closer inspection shows upper and lower ball joints gone, inner and outer tie rods dangerously loose and one front shock just bouncing around inside the coil spring.

With one and a half arms (had rotator cuff surgery about the time I was finishing, but was lacking most strength in my dominant arm because of damage), I changed every freaking thing to do with steering! Of course it took me 2 trips to the parts store because my truck has the 'optional' "heavy duty" 4000 pound front axle under it. I made a socket for those dasterdly top ball joints that screw in and used my 5' all steel (62 pounds) pipe wrench to turn them, and proceeded to change all 4 ball joints, inner and outer tie rod ends, center link (original looked like someone used it to pull with), center link support, serpentine belt and front shocks. Oh yeah, I changed front brakes and rotors. On the driver's side, what was left of pads were wearing on the fins inside where the rotor used to be! At least 2 rotors and pads were only $110. I went ahead and spend the $40 or so to put in all new front inner and outer wheel bearings while I was in there. I did also install a new door pin kit to tighten up the doors, trying to stop some of the squeaks as well as taking each door panel off and silencing absolutely EVERYTHING inside the doors. Still it sounds like there is a team of evil monkeys rubbing metal together at the rear of each front fender.

All Moog steering parts and Timken bearings. To my surprise, when I took it to get aligned, it only took them 15 minutes and said all they really had to do was a slight adjustment and straighten the steering wheel. Now I have around 5k in the truck and there is still just a hole in the dash where a radio goes and the tailgate doesn't work. My wife is having a real throw down on me and I'm going nuts trying to find all the dang squeaks and rattles in this thing. No rust under it. Not even a little. and no broken frame or other parts (now that I'm intimately familiar with it's underside). At this point, I figure I may as well make a keeper out of it. That brings me to my real question (sorry for the loooong intro); how can I get both rear wheels to pull? I have my AARP card already and this is my very first 2wd pickup. I at least want both of them to pull when needed. The rear axle doesn't leak and I did change fluid in it during all the other things I was doing.

I don't think I just want to have something welded together and make it full time locked since it will mostly be driven on the street. So, with all that in mind, what would be my least expensive route to get both rear Toyo MT's pulling? Any advice?

 

Are you sure you don't have some sort of limited slip in it now? Ive always had good luck with the Detroit lockers?

http://www.summitracing.com/search/B...c&autoview=SKU

 

Thanks for the reply. Ouch!! It shows the Detroit Locker I'd need at $610. That puts it out of the question for me. If I have a locking rear axle, it's not working. It will just spin the right rear if you power brake it.

 

Dana 60? should have a dana 70. There are automatic lockers that go in the current carrier(assuming an open carrier and not a posi) At least I think you can get one for the dana 70 rear. these are around $4-500

 

It may not be the most guaranteed route because the parts are used, but it is worth checking- look at www.car-parts.com (you can check inventory of parts yards all over the US), and see what a rear axle with limited slip runs in your neck of the woods. A good quality limited slip or locker won't be cheap, no matter how you cut it. So, perhaps a replacement axle, especially if it is out of a newer truck and has disc brakes, might be an option.

 

I'm with Hodge. I used that site to find the 5spd replacement for the old automatic, and got several responses with prices from junkyards all over the country. If you could get a feel from the seller if they have half a brain/care about their customer and can maybe inspect the power lock and see if it still works. I guess if the rest is o.k, rebuilding the factory clutch packs is fairly inexpensive, the number $170 is in the back of my head. Either that or look for a detroit/etc to roll into the carrier you've got now. Look at drivetrain.com and quad4x4.com, they're both pretty knowledgable. Good luck!