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Dana 60 Curse??? Other beware!!!

E

elks

1/2 ton status
Joined
Nov 8, 2009
Posts
324
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3
Location
NW Colorado
So I just got home from a huge waste of time and money trip. I drove 11 hours to pick up an 87 1 ton SRW that was running and had a 350/4spd/ 36" iroks etc. The price was good, negotiated to $1200. I talked/texted with the guy several times and asked 3 times that the truck had the dana 60 front. He assured me it did. He sent the vin number so I could check it etc....

So on my way to get my deal I blow a rear tire. It does not come free so at 75 mph I have 3 feet of tread beating the hell out of my truck while I am trying to get control, save the trailer etc. Needless to say it messed up my bed from the rear bumper to the cab. It took out my tail light, took out my gas filler hose, dented everthing, broke my parking brake cable but somehow missed mt brake line. We eneded up spending the night at my cousins house. Got up in the morning rednecked everything back together and went to get my prize new find. We get there, the kid comes out and wants me to jump in and fire it up. It starts up sounds fine. I then get out while it idles and start looking it over. Tires are good. VIN was number he gave, etc. Then I drop down and instantly get pissed as hell. The thing had an 8 lug 10 bolt. I about lost it. Luckily my dad was there to ease me back into my truck. Guy says he had no idea. But the bolts all looked freshly turned/broke free....

Earlier this week I was going to get a dana 60. When the guy sent pics the front had a 60 c0ver, but the housing was all wierd. Spring perches were 37" apart etc. I couldn't believe it. What a crappy week 2 dana 60 deals made and both went to crap.

Now I have a nice big deducatable to pay.

All I can say is get pics lots of pics on anything you may go buy.... People out there will try screw you... The guy is lucky my dad knows how to handle me...

I learned a very hard lesson and feel like I just got my arse kicked hard.
 
That sucks big time.

I went through the same thing finding the D60 for my Blazer, talked to MANY people that advertised a D60 front only to find out (by getting more pictures) that it was a 10 bolt or Dana 44.

I think people just hear the "desirable" stuff and advertise it as that, we really get calls from people all the time that have factory D60's in a Blazer (front and rear), 12 and 14 bolt fronts, etc (yes, I know people build 14 bolt front ends :waytogo:)

The worst is it's possible the guy was REALLY trying to screw you and knew that once you drove that far, it's unlikely you'd leave empty handed. It sucks and it's a gamble.

Pictures of the key components (axles in this case) are super important. If you look at another axle long distance, have a CK5 member check it out for you for a case of beer. The worst is having someone else buy the thing before you get there, and putting a deposit on something long distance, sight unseen is probably more dangerous.

It's all part of trying to find the cheapest, best D60 out there. I did that with the D60 for my Blazer in college and had many swept out before I got there, even within the hour with cash in hand. Unfortunately now-a-days, not many people don't know that a SRW kingpin D60 is worth $1K+
 
I kinda had the same issue, I was out on a pipeline job for 6 months, sent my truck to a family friend shop to have my truck looked over for the hell of it. Found out my carrier bearing was eating away at my 10 bolt housing

So I decided to do 1 ton swap then. Did all my searching over the phone and all that. Found a guy who said he had a D60 fully rebuilt eveything brand new yada yada since I was out of town he brought them up to the shop, he wanted 1200 for it which I figured was ok for being all done ready to drop in.

Family friend looked it over said it was good, paid the guy then the next day the FF called and said the axle needed new hubs, the calipers were sticking, and a few other things. Ended up putting way more money into it than I thought.

called the guy to ask why the hell he advertised it as fully rebuilt if it wasn't. He never would answer

Oh well it's in now. To bad it's just an expensive lawn ordarment right now
 
I got my axles from a local member who gave me a very fair deal and he could have easily scammed me because i didnt really know how to distinguish a 60 from a 10 bolt or 44 at the time but dealing with a ck5 member saved my ass.
 
It's not limited to just D-60's...


It's just general douchebaggery in general....:doah::doah:
 
Yep... I know this one. Fortunately for me it was only about 45 min away. Guy at work had a truck with "dana 60's front and rear". Soon as the truck was in eye sight i could see it was 6 lug. But because the truck was a "heavy half" it had factory dana 60's as far as this ass hat was concerned...
 
I think I could have some of you beat.

About 13 years ago I got the job of looking for a SWB frame for a customer and it had to be the '81-'87 years so I checked online just about everywhere. Then I found one. Like 3 or 4 states over. The owner of the salvage yard claimed it was in excellent, pristine condition and not bent, etc., so I agreed to have it shipped to me. Back then the frame was $500 plus around $100 to ship.
Fast forward to the day the semi pulled in at work to drop a frame off. The driver came in and searched for me. First thing out of my mouth was "you didn't unload it yet, did you?" He didn't. So I went out and climbed in to inspect the carcass. Thats exactly what it turned out to be: a carcass. I told the driver I don't want it and I refuse to pay the shipping fee. So he shut the doors and left.
I got on the phone and called the yard to rip the owner. That frame had bends and holes all over it. The rear shock studs were both completely sheared off with holes big enough to put your fist thru. It was trashed in other words. So the owner took it back and refunded my $500. The delivery fee was agreed beforehand that I would pay cash to the driver so I was able to save that money.
Guess it wasn't a great day for that owner as he was the one who had to empty his pockets. Waste of time regardless to get my hopes and expectations up only to find a POS.
 
it's unfortunately common for the average idiot to think his 8 lug 10 bolt is a 1 ton...

I've had quite a few I looked at back in the day... one was a 2 hr run each way, was a little annoyed at that one...
 
Been there....Drive 50 miles to check out a "mint running 350" in a 70's GM truck when I needed a V8 to swap in my van--get there,after 2 days of playing e-mail tag to get his adress,and I see a grimy blue colored block,which means 99% on the time its either a 305 or a less desireable late 70's smog motor that may or may not be a 350...................................................................................................I brought my motors and chiltons manuals in hopes of identifying it by the engine code...I found them ,the owner was wondering why I was so interested in the codes ,and he acted like he didn't know anything about them,but I got the feeling he knew more than he wanted to let on...I found the code,and ta-da,it comes up to be a 305 from a 78 monte carlo,which I pretty much new as soon as I saw the dualjet 2 bbl ...The motor did sound pretty nice I'll admit,but I passed on it for 350 bucks,and I told the guy "at least you KNOW it's NOT a 350 for sure now",and he kinda gulped and said meekly "yeah,I guess I'll have to change the ad".....I think he knew exactly what it was,I didn't have to wipe much grease off the code number area--like someone had already not long ago...................................................................................................Another engine I looked at ended up being a decent bargain--it was a 400 small block in a 78 4x4 Suburban,I ended up buying the whole truck for 400 cash--it was a nice truck but severely rotted and was all patched up with aluminum roof flashing on both sides about a foot high...that motor ended up in my 77 GMC K2500 and I sold the rolling chassis to a guy who bought a recovered theft that was driven over a stone wall after being stolen for 400 bucks...that was one of my better engines ,always ran good...................................................................................................................We always had customers come into the junkyard saying they have this or that,but they dont!..one guy who wasn't well versed in english came in --swore his K5 had a TH350 in it--it was a TH400,and we told him it was doubtful it came with it factory..he wanted a transfer case and insisted he needed one for a TH350,so we sold him one...next day,he 's back in his wifes car,with 2 transfer cases in the trunk (along with about 3 qts of 90W!) and he's all pissed off,saying we sold him the wrong one.....................................................................................................we went and took a TH400 NP205 T-case off the shelf,and showed him it matched the original identically..he finally admitted me MIGHT be wrong..then my boss tells him "that style costs 150 bucks more because they aint very common--!..thats when the yelling started,but the guy ended up buying it and driving off...our boss was laughing,he said as the guy was leaving he said something about "I going to the car wash--my wife's a gonna shoot me,when she smells da trunk!"...
 
ryoken said:
it's unfortunately common for the average idiot to think his 8 lug 10 bolt is a 1 ton...

I've had quite a few I looked at back in the day... one was a 2 hr run each way, was a little annoyed at that one...
Click to expand...
The most common blooper around here is that almost 95% of the people trying to sell some 1 ton axles don't know the difference because they think the First Design D44 with the external locking hubs makes it a D60 because of its size. :doah::doah::doah:
 
Im running into the same issue looking for a Suburban. Been trolling craigslist and almost every ad says no rust. Get there (so far the farthest has been a 2 hour trip with 1 hour of it being the way I was needing to go for something else) and 100 feet from them I could see rust. The latest one had rust everywhere down low on the body and it gained over 100k miles from his ad to two days later when I looked at. "Oh I must have meant the other one I have for sale had the fewer miles, you wanna look at it?" To which I replied, "Nope, youve wasted my time and lied so good day" I have since expanded my search to other states and upped the price Im gonna have to pay to get a good one.
 
Yea I deal with craigslist idiots a lot. 90% of those SOBs lie outright or just fail to give info that would make you not want something.

But...

This last ad I called about some gray cloth seats and the guy answered and immediately starting talking about some 2005 GTO black leather seats. Yea, those are the ones I'm calling about...
 
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