I've got an AAM 14 ff for the rear of my K5 project and have been planning to get a dana 60 but am also considering keeping the dana 44 front and changing it to 8-lug to match the rear. I've read the very good post on converting here on ck5 and have started looking for parts. Brake backing plate/caliper mounting plates appear to be the hardest to source parts. I'm seeing options at $500+ for a pair. Am I not looking in the correct places or is that just a fact? The cost of a dana 60 is starting to look not too bad.
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Dana 44 6-lug to 8-lug
- Thread starter JohnNoble
- Start date
I’m new to all of this. I’m also in the process of doing this same swap. I have everything expect for rotors and backing/ caliper mount.
If I’m correct the Dana 44 had 2 different size spindle bearings. Maybe need spindles? It’s been a while since I looked it over
2 places sell brand new backing plates.
1 is $450 and the other is $500
I purchased hubs from eBay.
All the bearings I purchased from dennys drive shaft online.
Who's selling new 3/4 ton backing plates?
Damn, feeling kinda bad about all the K20 front axles we let go of back in the day just because they weren’t Dana 60’s.
Add this to a long list of regrets…
Add this to a long list of regrets…
Dang when I did my six to eight lug conversion in 2018 or so, I went to the junkyard and pulled everything I needed for like 60 bucks.
A looooonnnnnnngggggggg list indeed lol
I click on it and my AVG antivirus says it's a malicious website...?
Those look home made!
I've been looking for over a year https://ck5.com/forums/threads/8-lug-hubs-for-10-bolt.349405/.
The junkyards don't list this part, but to be fair mostly don't sell them separately. You can score used sets on eBay for like $350, but I remember when I grabbed a set for about $20 and reworked them for my rear brakes. I've been keeping on eye on Marketplace and will likely end up buying a whole front axle for $200-$300. At least that has some extra parts. It's just that around here everyone's junk like this is still under a couple of feet of snow (meaning we've had tons of warm weather).
The rotors are still readily available.
The junkyards don't list this part, but to be fair mostly don't sell them separately. You can score used sets on eBay for like $350, but I remember when I grabbed a set for about $20 and reworked them for my rear brakes. I've been keeping on eye on Marketplace and will likely end up buying a whole front axle for $200-$300. At least that has some extra parts. It's just that around here everyone's junk like this is still under a couple of feet of snow (meaning we've had tons of warm weather).
The rotors are still readily available.
I remember when you could buy K20 axles for around $100; seems like they were everywhere.
I went out back and counted and I have 6 K20 axles.
At least you were wise enough to hold onto the ones that ya got.
Years ago the K20 axles were about the same price but rear six-lug 10bolts were more expensive because they were in demand due to the Gov-Loks killing them on a regular basis.
In the mid-nineties we found a military surplus yard in Auburn, Alabama ( BEE HIVE Recyclers if I recall correctly ) that had a fair amount of CUCV’s and whatever the Blazers were called - the price for ANY axle was $250 ( it didn’t matter if it was a 10bolt 3.08 or a D60 4.56 w/ a T/L from an ambulance ).
Once we found this out we assembled a posey the very next day and set out to get every single D60 ( about 6 or 7 ) several 14b’s , a few TH400’s $ 208’s and one complete CUCV ambulance DRW chassis.
All of this was loaded down on a P.O.S. trailer and pulled by a mid-seventies F100 that was tired - NVRENUF may have a picture of that setup roll’n down I-65 at 45mph severely overloaded!
Even ole Fred Sanford would have judged this situation as a bad idea - all we knew was we had struck junkyard GOLD and now everyone in our group had K30 axles!
And at that point we no longer regarded K20 front axles as worthy and traded them all off - a case of shoulda-woulda-coulda if there ever was one.
I wish I still had my big-hub Spicer D44 just for the cool factor on a daily-driver.
5 and 6lug stuff .
correct
I think I may start looking for a K20 front axle as it'll probable be cheaper than converting my 6-lug.
