Mike Holmen

Jamie, I can't decide which way to go for the knuckles. The chevy stuff there is more aftermarket brakes available, but the ford stuff is pretty cheap. I wonder how much the PSC hydraulic assist would help. I think that it would elimate the death wobble and help in turning those big wheels. I want to run some big tires like your ride buddy, one day. My wife thinks that my truck is already to bigI just like driving over stuff.

Mike Holmen

Tate, as for the dana 60 and 1/2ton stuff, you have to watch the brake and rotor combo. You're limited to a ford/twin calipaer 12.5in or 12.83in chevy/single caliper. Its that darn 8X165mm tire bolt pattern. Ford makes a monster 14.5in rotor on a 8x170mm hub, but that changes lots of stuff.

Its easy to just put something in there but you might have smaller brakes/rotor. I put on 3rd gen dodge brakes. Then you get the 13.8in rotor, and its not gonna ruin the bank acount. The trick is to get the caliper bracket to fit onto the knuckle. I'm gonna let the secert out on that one. its gonna cost you a beer or two.

Running the ford stuff, you get the manual locking hubs, no need for a free spin kit.

As I said I'm learning

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Mike what are you talking about 8on165?

I guess I wasn't direct enough in that last post. ford is 8 on 6.5" up till 1998.......... you sure can put any aftermarket knuckle on it and inner C and get to use a 6 stud GM style spindle. so you can get away from the stock 5 stud ford spindle.

Tate

Technically, 6.5" is the same as 165.1mm.

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Fords are measured in inches. same as Chevy and Dodge 8 on 6.5" standard until they went to 8 on 170mm metric pattern in 1999.

and the hub hole has nothing to do with the lug pattern. as some of those are different sizes over different years and makes. but still 8 lugs stud patterns from the big 3 with D60 fronts and GM IFS 2500/3500 are all 8 on 6.5" with stupid ford changing in 1999 to metric.

Tate

I understand that, but that might be where some of the confusion is coming from. That, or it was a lucky typo.

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oh I see what your saying. ya not sure.

Mike Holmen

Luke, I'm with ya on the chevy stuff, as in stock form is way beefier, and I can get an adapter built so I can run the 3rd gen dodge brakes, a cheap big brake upgrade. After that you have to figure out what steering bars to use. I wonder if the chevy outer tie rod ends will bolt into dodge bars. I can get custom bars built, but I'm trying hard just to use stock parts as much as I can, so just in case something break, I can fix it any where. Worst case I can get PSC to build me a set of custom bars. I'll let you guys know on pricing, as I'm at the point just about every part in my front is worn out, and needs to be rebuilt, so the pricing differance isn't that bad from a stock rebuild.

I also think that cutting off that inner C will be fun stuff as thats the most scarey part of this rebuild.

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1ton Chev TRE will not go into dodge holes.........i went down that road with my '98.5.

Clayton at Evolution machine makes billet chevy TREs....they are BEEF. if you change the inner and outters you'll be able to use Chevy TREs anyways because you can bolt whatever arms to it that you want. just choose arms that are GM taper.

cLAYH

Luke, are those a direst replacemnet for the Chevy 1 ton TREs? As in an actually TRE with a tapered stud and not a Heim? Are they on their wesite, looked around but didn't see it. I could use that on my Jeep.....

In my exeerpience from building the D44 front axle on my Grand Cherokee its a lot easier to change out a set of inner "C"s that it is to swap out brackets. In fact its not worth the effort of hacking the old brackets off, they don't usually come off very nice. Atleast I didn't have much success in using a plasma cutter and grinder.

Mike Holmen

I think that cutting out the inner C off the axle tube, shouldn't be to hard a job. I'm thinking of just cutting down along both side of inner C, then use a hammer and they should just pop-off. Hopefully I can get all the parts by early next month. I might start on it earlier than I first though, as it isn't that hard of a job.

The PSC hydraulic steering assist, you don't need a steering damper. It firms up the steering alot.

I was pricing out replacement upper/low kingpins, $65 for both. Longer life and cheaper to replace as well.

I probably go the heim route. They look really beefy.

You guys hear anything about this locker?
http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/billav...ker/index.html

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they're actual 1ton GM replacement taper seat TREs.

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Mikester. 1 question though......... why do you have to change the inner C's? they're not really a strength issue. generally the knuckles would fail way before the inner C.

you can hang aftermarket knuckles on no problem. waaay less work. have kingpin rebuild while they're off. and let it buck.


heres a buds High Pinion D60 Ford front with Deadenbear knuckles, linked suspension with king coilovers all around in his Jeep. its a serious rock crawler. they all use a GM spindle, but you can bolt any steering arms you want on. keep the big ford brakes

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that front diff is in the blue jeep

Mike Holmen

Luke, I thought that the inner C for the ball joint knuckle is different than the king pin knuckle. I could be wrong with that assumption, I will find out soon.

That set-up is almost the same as the way that I'm gonna build mine, just I'm not put the long arms on at this time (later on maybe).

Thanks for your help buddy. Those steering bars/arm are serious beefy stuff., he's using the high steering arm. I don't know if I'm going that way to start with, as I don't have a big lift on my truck yet, so the high steering bars might interfere with truck body/frame. If they don't I'm going that route.

I'm hoping that if I get all the parts, I can get this done in a weekend

I'm also thinking about running 3rd gen brakes (13.8in diameter vs my current12.8in rotor)