i've been pondering this whole Dana 60 thing and think i've been bitten by the pirate Dana 60 bug and I belive I want one.

i've spent the last couple hours searching for my options.

Currently I have a Ford 9" 31 spline Detroit with Disc brakes

I wanna keep that axle for now but could get an 8 lug 60.... i'm still contomplating this right now

I found a D60 HP housing for 300 I want to know if it is worth buying or not.... the guy says it is in good shape so to build a good D60 how much will it cost for 5 lug and 8 lug?

I don't know where to get good prices on 60 parts so i found these prices on pirate so if they are inaccurate please correct me.

Detroit $515
Gears $220
Master Install Kit $150
lock outs 180
35 spline stubs $150
inners $300

Subtotal $2115

And tell me where to get this stuff too

thanx

So D60 experts tell me your $.02

I know this may not be an option for you, but 2,5 ton rockwells are cheaper than a D60, but I dont know if you'd want to worry about doing that more complicated swap. Daniel sells a rebuilt front axle rockwell for only 1200... check out his site for info on that.

as for a D60, I'd buy that housing... throw on some good axles, a detroit, low gears and call it 3 grand, I still havenmt decided which way I'm gonna go, but that will be a little ways off.
you can always sell your 9" or trade it for a rear D60 FF if you wanted to. I'm not 100% positive on strength comparisons though....
good luck

Does the housing come with knuckles, hubs, rotors and brakes. if not your looking at a whole lot mo' money. The little things (bearings, seals,kingpin bushings, u-joints,etc...)add up real fast also.

Bare HOUSING..... like NOTHING but the housing...... it has the carrier berring caps...........


Is there a place where u can buy just knuckles?

new....dyna trac

used ...scrounge around.

a hp housing goes from 250 to 400 for a bare housing

If I remember right (and its been a while so I could easly be wrong) when I priced new hubs for my 60 they where wanting about $400 per for them. Just the hubs!!!. Once again I'm no expert but I would think that you could get one close to ready to go (exept gears and locker) for about $1200 and start there and come out better.

I think you would be better off just buying a complete axle.
I have roughtly $2000 in mine but that includes shop install of gears. If I did it myself it would be $1500 for rc60,detriot,5.13s and stock everything else.
Just find some deals
I get that housing though for some other prodject(rear)

Ill have about 1500 in my front Dana 60

dont forget steering too. i have arb (675), gears(400 w/install kit)
steering arms (200), tie rod and drag link(?300 ish), ram(100 ish)

correct me if i'm wrong but if i want to get 5 in 5.5 i gotta get chevy outers which generally run???

$500 i figure

we talkin front? dynatrac prorock....... about 4500$ thats with alloy shafts, gear of choice, 35 spline outters, warn premium hubs, 5 on 5.5, .5 walled tubes, custom casted knuckles, high steer, diff cover that seems like it wont bend.... custom casted housing.... spool, chice of wms to wms and all warrantied for one year...... not a bad deal when you add it all up...........

that included new rotor calipers... yad yada, complete brake assmbly......


rear? 3500$ disc brake, 35 spline, gear of choice, spool, .5 walled tube, and the pro rock center section.....

badassjeepguy- true, I have never thought about it that way when you brake it down. I thought I was only going to invest a $1g in mine, but it added up quick and I still have stock "weak" parts.

Originally posted by bent70
badassjeepguy- true, I have never thought about it that way when you brake it down. I thought I was only going to invest a $1g in mine, but it added up quick and I still have stock "weak" parts. stock parts make for coolnoises though, trust me on this one! jiMMy

Originally posted by The Jerk
stock parts make for coolnoises though, trust me on this one! jiMMy

I hope so I can't wait:nuke:

You have a VERY good point there BADASS i need to contomplate that

I prolly have around $3000 in my chevy front D60,

Stock axle $1200
ARB $700
Steering arms $300
Gears $200
Sleeved Tie rod and drag link $200
New Warn Hubs $200


If its the ebay housing that is fs I think its expensive!

You still need:

2 spindles $150 at least the pair
2 hubs $200
2 rotors $150
2 calippers $150

those are prices of stuff Ive got from ebay, during the past year...

Ive seen axles in the FS section for $1200 ford and $100 chewys 60s

HTH

I just went through this EXACT SAME THING. Here is what to watch out for, from my personal experience. I'm not a POR 'expert', but I have gone through this exact experience. This is what actually happened to me:

The housing I bought was just the housing, with caps, no cover, nothing knuckles out, plus shafts, diff (no bearings), and gears (no bearings).

What I found was that the HARDEST thing to come up with were the knuckles themselves. Being that you are starting more or less from scratch, you will want the chevy knuckles to leave yourself the option of 35 splining it either now or in the future. For that you need the chevy knuckles. Try and find a set for a decent price. EXTREMELY hard.

Ford knuckles are easy to find - this is because everyone is swapping them out. The big reasons why, as far as I was able to tell, were: They are weaker, you cannot 35 spline them, all parts are generally more expensive (ie: brakes and whatever), it SEEMS like it is harder to get the ford brakes to fit within a 15 inch wheel, it SEEMS like you cannot swap 1/2 or 3/4 ton stuff onto the ford stuff like you can with the chevy stuff. Again, I'm no 'expert', but during the research I did, it just seemed like things were going to go a little smoother in the brakes department working with chevy stuff than with ford stuff, that was my general feel, and being somewhat hamfisted mechanically, I'm always looking for the easiest way.

I DID end up getting a set of knuckles, but only AFTER I ended up buying an entire chevy d60 front axle just for the knuckles, spindles, stubs, hubs and caliper brackets.

A lot of the stuff is available: You can buy the hubs, spindles, stubs, all from Randy's, just call and order. But it's not cheap. It's not real expensive either, but all that shit adds up.

It's the knuckles, and to a small extent the caliper brackets, that are hard to come up with. I think I found out that stubs were 53$ each, that was not bad, spindles were around 100, hubs are quite a bit more expensive.... you get the picture.

You can get whatever gears, locker, etc that you want - you just gotta come up with coin and order it. But the knuckles and stuff like that - even if you have the money, they are hard to come by. I phoned around everywhere. WMS sells new, really high quality, extremely tough knuckles - but they are like 1500 a pair, you must use high steer arms, and he only makes them now and then, so you gotta order them and then wait for them to get made, usually. Every single person I talked to, from WMS to Sam's to Randy's to you name it, said the same thing - it's the knuckles that are hard to come by - everything else you can get.


So I guess my advice to you is:

a) if possible, find knuckles before buying the axle. I know that's going to be hard in less than 2 days.

b) if you cannot do that, then be prepared to sit on that axle for a long time while you scroung up the parts. I was sitting on mine for a few months before I had the parts I needed to complete it. I ended up laying out more cash then I wanted to simply because I ran out of time and HAD to get it done, so if the money is tight, you might have to sit on it a long time to wait for the right deal to come up on the knuckles.

HTH

Chad

Oh yeah, in your list of parts you have completely left off cost of brakes and steering linkages. PLUS the whole can of worms over what size wheel/tire you are going to use.

Again, I'm no expert, but what I did was stick with stock chevy 1 ton stuff. Kept it 8 lug, 16.5 inch wheels. This let me completely bypass all the 3/4 ton brake, grind it to hell, massive back spacing issues. Was able to use 'standard' 8 lug wheels, 8.25 wide with 4.25 backspacing (I think it was 4.25, could have been 4.75). Welded on rockstomper beadlocks, ran for 3 days of hardcore rockcrawling at 5 psi, 38.5 SXs, never lost a bead. DID lose a bead when a slow leak caused the tire to go totally flat, and the bead broke even though there was no weight on the tires ! (was on jackstands). My point is that if you can go the 16.5 route then you avoid a whole lot of other issues anc costs, and it doesn't get nearly as wide as it does with the backspacing required for 15 inch rims. OTOH, you might have a set of 15 inch tires you want to keep?? dunno.

The brakes - the one ton stuff was relatively cheap, and super super easy to work with/on. Of course, it still adds up to a good cost when you gotta buy 2 rotors, 2 calipers, and probably new brake lines (?)..... if you go the 15 inch rim route, then you got the cost of making that work, extra cost in wheels, etc etc. Also if you want 5 lug, you having machining costs for that, although that might be offset with some existing wheels you have (so you won't have to buy another set)??

Steering linkages can get real expensive, depending on how you do it and where you get the parts. I was lucky, buddy of mine is a fabricator and made me a cross over steering arm. For the linkages, I got slugs from Roggy and welded them to DOM tubing. Used standard chev 1 ton TREs. But again, that stuff adds up - 15$ X 4 slugs, say 50$ for tubing, 4 TREs @ 50 bucks each, plus your custom steering arm....

so (keep in mind I'm in canada, so I'm kinda guesstimating us cost):

rotors 100$
calipers 50$
pads 25$
wheels 200$
slugs 60$
DOM 50$
TREs 200$
beadlocks 300$ (rockstomper)

add in a minimum of another 985$, if you don't get too cocky with what you trying to do. Might be offset with existing stuff you have now, but .......

You can fit a 15" rim with 3.5" backspacing on Ford 1-ton brakes by grinding for about 10 minutes a side. 3.5" BS is a standard backspacing for 8-lug, no special order junk. Not much material at all. You can 35 spline on Ford knuckles also.

it'd be cheaper for me to keep my 9" rear that is already set up got a Detroit and discs..... I wonder if I can redrill the 9" flanges for 8 lug and find a 12" 8 lug rotor........ then jsut got to get rims and find a 4.10 geared complete 60 and that would be the cheapest route for now........

If you are loking for a rear 60, 35 spline, 5x5.5, semi floater you may find a factory 60-2 in the pirate classifieds

The rear is not so much that I am worried about at this moment I can find them i just want the front 60 :D

man i'll i've been thinking about today is a Dana 60........ I finally got big by the pirate D60 bug

I have a pair of BRAND NEW knuckles that I might let go for the right price. PM me

They are Chevy Kingpin knuckles

i shoulda never let you see mine, haha:D

What happened to "I don't need a 60." Did I help talk you into it? You can come look at mine and drool over it. I should start sandblasting it tommorrow. Going to make it nice and purdy. I decided to go with hummer wheels and keep the Ford brakes. You can still have 35 spline stubs, just have to modify a chevy stub. I wouldn't buy the bare housing. I priced parts for that Chevy I was going to build and now I have priced parts for the Ford. After comparing prices and looking for parts I think getting a complete one is a lot better idea than a bare housing. Besides the gripe of finding all of the parts, you will still probably spend just as much as if you would have got a complete one. Oh yeah, go ahead and ditch the 9 inch no matter how proud of the brakes you are. If you go 60 up front your going to want to change the rear later anyway. Be better in the long run instead of trying to change one of the axles lug patterns.

Originally posted by SittonHigh
What happened to "I don't need a 60." Did I help talk you into it? You can come look at mine and drool over it.

NOPE aint seen er yet.... might have to come take a look see....

i shoulda never let you see mine, haha

you are right on there They are just so dang purddy..... I don't know how u can live without one.....