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Anyone use a Dodge coil spring front end for SAS?

crashandburn

crashandburn

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I am planning to do a SAS on my 96 Suburbalanche, and while wandering the junkyard, I got to thinking. I can get a front end, control arms, mounts, springs, and spring buckets from a late 90's Ram for probably stupid cheap. I know it wouldn't be a bolt in swap like buying a kit from ORD, but this would be cool and different, and maybe better.
Possible advantages:
2500's used strong front ends, I think Dana 60's?
Driver side drop axle
Coil spring= nicer ride
I speculate that it might flex a little better
Same 8 lug bolt pattern
Few people, if any, have done it= different and therefore more cool

Seems like the hardest part would be mounting the spring buckets to the frame. And that doesn't even seems so bad.
Any thoughts?
 
The coil sprung dodge 2500's (higher GVWR) and 3500's do use a Dana 60, but ......it is not quite the same as a GM 60. They are CAD (central axle disconnect) axles, meaning the pass side is actually a 2 piece shaft that has a coupler that connects the two when put in 4wd.
They are also ball joint axles as opposed to king pins, and finally they use unit bearings as which also means no selectable hubs, so everything spins all the time. You would also need to add a trac bar to the setup as well.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing these axles at all. They survive under 1000hp cummins trucks in nearly stock form, and all of their shortcomings have aftermarket remedies.

You can use ford parts to swap to old school hubs with manual hubs, dynatrac also sells a kit and some high end rebuildable balljoints, I personally put ~350k on one that was under my 00 cummins with only two sets of balljoints, 3 unit bearing replacements (3 total, not 3 pairs ) one set of u joints and that was about it.
 
I just remembered this, a few years back Ian on xtreme 4x4 did a project called urban gorrilla IIRC, it was a surburban frame with a hummer style body and a dmax engine. When he first did the front suspension he did a dodge coil sprung 60.....for some reason I think he changed it later but I do remember him building the coil buckets etc.
 
Seen one done on a 88-98 for sale in Alberta a year or so ago. Thing had the while dodge setup. It sat real Low as well. I was surprised when I looked at the pics of it.
 
So that coupling setup, is that a bad thing? What activates it, 12v? Vacuum? Could I graft in the axle as is and leave it? Seems like they do fine in the trucks they came in, and a Cummins makes way more power than my 6.5 baby diesel. Also I'm not looking to go huge, just 35's or 37's at the most.
 
There is a way to put ford D50 outers (lockout hubs and serviceable bearings) on the Dodge 60. Its on pirate somewhere.
 
C.A.D unit central axle disconect

its o.k. but if going live spindle with kit or ford parts then you get hubs and its no longer needed.

also its weaker in the long tube and have been known to break in hard play .

there is full 1 peice shaft conversion kits i think to make it go bye bye .

its vac operated via a t-case switch . like ifs trucks do also . posi lock makes a cable kit for it .
 
crashandburn said:
What does blick mean?
Click to expand...

Blick as in 5 links are terrible. Inherit bind due to suspension geometry fighting itself. Its a 4 link which doesnt want to pitch sideways in travel with a trac bar that pushes the suspension sideways in travel. Radius arms are a much better setup than a 5 link.

Either go custom 3 link or radius arms. The radius arms will be much easier and can be build off of ford parts.
 
Stomis said:
Blick as in 5 links are terrible. Inherit bind due to suspension geometry fighting itself. Its a 4 link which doesnt want to pitch sideways in travel with a trac bar that pushes the suspension sideways in travel. Radius arms are a much better setup than a 5 link.

Either go custom 3 link or radius arms. The radius arms will be much easier and can be build off of ford parts.
Click to expand...

A parallel 4 link does have some inherent bind, that's why they have to use joints with a little give to them.

But a radius arm setup has more bind in it than any other suspension setup I can think of, can you explain why you think it has less than anything else?
 
Lumpdog on pirate has a good write up on this, with a suburban. There is another tahoe on fullsizechevy with the same conversion and another pickup on pirate too.
 
38377k5 said:
A parallel 4 link does have some inherent bind, that's why they have to use joints with a little give to them.

But a radius arm setup has more bind in it than any other suspension setup I can think of, can you explain why you think it has less than anything else?
Click to expand...

A long arm radius setup with heims or JJs on the end is far superior IMO than trying to make stock 5 link parts work. Plus we're somewhat talking about simplicity of getting coils under the front of a rig and the plus and negatives. You're not wrong, stock for stock neither is great and the 5 link probably performs better but for a beginner to coils/links long radius arms cant be beat for investment vs reward.

My RAs in the front of my trooper flex like crazy and have no bind until the very last bit of droop, which is negligible because all the flexing I did was on a bare frame with no body/drivetrain weight to counter the bind and make use of the bushings.

I guess my point is that if we're going to discuss a stock front end design to build off of I would choose radius arms. Not to mention the axle is superior too.
 
crashandburn said:
I am planning to do a SAS on my 96 Suburbalanche, and while wandering the junkyard, I got to thinking. I can get a front end, control arms, mounts, springs, and spring buckets from a late 90's Ram for probably stupid cheap. I know it wouldn't be a bolt in swap like buying a kit from ORD, but this would be cool and different, and maybe better.
Possible advantages:
2500's used strong front ends, I think Dana 60's?
Driver side drop axle
Coil spring= nicer ride
I speculate that it might flex a little better
Same 8 lug bolt pattern
Few people, if any, have done it= different and therefore more cool

Seems like the hardest part would be mounting the spring buckets to the frame. And that doesn't even seems so bad.
Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

I've been planning on using the dodge axle under my 2500HD as well. I was going to use a set off tuff country radius arms for it just for the added simplicity. I was also thinking of using ford coil buckets.
 
Wow does that Tahoe flex! Looks like he went for a 3 link, while the Suburban guy turned his contol arms into radius arms. Should I go this route or stick with the 5 link? It seems like if I weld in the parallel contol arm mounts it would not be any more difficult than the radius arm setup. Which would work better? I kind of feel like the 5 link would, and so does the resident ORD guy here, but it seems like everyone doing this kind of thing is going for radius arms.
 
A superduty axle is superior to a dodge axle, especially 05 and up axles
 
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