ford dana 60 knuckle upgrade

[jason m]

i have a ford dana 60 in the front of my jeep ( ya i know its a jeep, but i tow with a chevy ), even with power steering i always cringed when i cut the wheel hard, thinking i will snap the bolts off the high steer ( posion custom arms ). now i am going full hydro so an upgrade is in order. what i did was cut a pieace of 3/8 T-1 and weld it to another pieace of 1/4 T-1 1.5'' flat stock. then i welded it all to the OEM knuckle arm and using the old steering arm hole i weld a 1'' bolt and weld it to the plate. here some crappy pictures but shows what i did and the hole thing can come off to service the KP's, jason.

 

[jason m]

heres one more and i have some of the other side with the arms bolted to it, i will get them later, jason.

 

[muddermilitia]

i have a ford dana 60 in the front of my jeep ( ya i know its a jeep, but i tow with a chevy ), even with power steering i always cringed when i cut the wheel hard, thinking i will snap the bolts off the high steer ( posion custom arms ). now i am going full hydro so an upgrade is in order. what i did was cut a pieace of 3/8 T-1 and weld it to another pieace of 1/4 T-1 1.5'' flat stock. then i welded it all to the OEM knuckle arm and using the old steering arm hole i weld a 1'' bolt and weld it to the plate. here some crappy pictures but shows what i did and the hole thing can come off to service the KP's, jason.

Why do you cringe when you turn the wheel. Are the poison spyder arms crap? I was thinking of getting a pair for reverse High steer

 

[Hogback Fabrication]

He's afraid of breaking the knuckle (because the Ford ones are considered kinda weak).

 

[jason m]

the ford knuckles are the weeker of the three, thin webbing. so when i bought the arms from them they told me to run grade 5 bolts on the arm, i thought the guy was on crack so i asked him why he said ''i would rather see the bolts snap insted of the knuckle if i went to grade 8 or studs''. i did install the grade 8 bolts, but after seeing my friends ford 60 form cracks in the webbing area i got nervise ( he had studs ) and put grade 5. this is why now i did the reneforcement to the knuckle to spread out the force and beef the webbing. there arms are strong but my parts are a little week, jason.

 

[muddermilitia]

Oh i see, are all the ford knuckles like that or just certain years?

 

[6.2Blazer]

78Buford broke a knuckle on his Ford truck a while back, and this is a fairly common problem with big tires and hard trail use.

Regarding running grade 5's with the hope it will shear the bolts first......not really sure how that is a whole lot better. The bolts usually break off flush or inside the knuckle so no easy way to get them out, especially out on the trail.

 

[jason m]

Oh i see, are all the ford knuckles like that or just certain years?

no all king pin ford knuckles are thinner in the upper web area and with high steer they can snap easyer than the chevy or dodge, the price i pay for the high pinion. i do have chevy knuckles i could swap on but now i dont think i have to.

i said the same thing 6.2 blazer about runing the grade 5 bolts, this is why i put the 8's in there but got nervise under hard turns and with 39 red lable krawlers they bite hard, jason.

 

[gmcburb1965]

Great Idea on beef'in up the knuckle. I'm not a cert'd welder or anything but is it safe to weld on the knuckles? Never had much luck welding cast stuff myself, always ends up cracking. I ask b/c I don't know.

Very nice welds by the way.

 

[jason m]

Great Idea on beef'in up the knuckle. I'm not a cert'd welder or anything but is it safe to weld on the knuckles? Never had much luck welding cast stuff myself, always ends up cracking. I ask b/c I don't know.

Very nice welds by the way.

thanks, the knuckles acording to the dana 60 bible are a cast steel and i saw alot of peapel on pirate weld plates to beefup the knuckles. i set my miller 250 on a spray, but without runing a 98/2% gas its not true spray, more of a globular transfer. the welds are close to 100% in most ares so i am certan they will hold. somone ask ( well told me ) on pirate that what did wont help with over all strength, the main reasion i did this was to to get the strees off the 4 KP bolts, keep them from sherring and keep my week ass ford knuckles form breaking when i go full hydro, jason.