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My Front Dana 70 Build

If money were no object, I'd have Dynatrac build me a D70 front and D80 rear over any 9" Ford axle any day.
 
CDA 455, how did they do the inner axle seals? It looks like I can see the edge of one in the last pic.
 
Do I really need to answer this question? :rolleyes:

Lets leave the 9" axle to the smaller vehicles, namely Jeeps.

If you're so hard-on about 9" Ford rears, how come you're not running them? Your excuse down below in the quote isn't good enough.
Money and down time. Replacing the center section and/or tubes would take a while and wheeling season is just starting up here.

You don't need to use your current axles to use the tubes, etc. Find another set and get your 9"ers to build the so-called axles of your dreams.

I'm not gonna waste my time, yours, everyone else here and the bandwidth with reasons why to stick with a D60, 70 or 80.
 
BTW, don't piss on someone elses thread with suggestions of a POS 9" Ford rearend. If you want to talk about that, start your own thread and let it go from there. This is Clems moment to bask in the sunshine with his nice score he found on eBay.
 
Do I really need to answer this question? :rolleyes:

Lets leave the 9" axle to the smaller vehicles, namely Jeeps.

That's the answer I figured I'd get :surepal:



Clem's got a pretty unique front axle here and I hope he keeps the brotherhood updated as it comes together.

I'm just trying to keep some tech around here, admittedly this thread got pushed onto a tangent.
 
Yes it did get "pushed onto a tangent" but a 9" Ford rear has no place with a D60, 70 or 80.

'Nuff said.
 
Eh the only real advantage I see to a 9in is the third member. I still miss that coming from owning a toyota. Not to mentions rediculous amounts of money for a FF kit. IDK about you but when your serious enough that your putting custom axles like that in I'd like the security of knowing my back wheel isnt gonna role away when i snap a shaft.
 
Yes it did get "pushed onto a tangent" but a 9" Ford rear has no place with a D60, 70 or 80.

'Nuff said.

I said it before (and posted a link to the comparison) but the 9" ring and pinion setup is almost twice as strong as a D60 setup. The very low (or very high) pinion allows it to have much larger teeth and much more gear contact than most other axles. And it has the third pinion bearing (and the true hi-9's have a thrust block too) to control deflection (the main cause of ring and pinion failures).

I like the 9" because its, small, strong and light.


Allright, back to your regularly scheduled front Dana 70 thread. I won't talk about 9's anymore ;)
 
if money was no object id have a set of volvo portals or unimogs..

The Volvo portals aren't very strong (weaker than 1 tons)

All of the 'mog axles (there are several series) are beef. Their only weakness is the portal box housing and there are fixes for that.
 
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I bet you could just make new spring plates (for 2.5" springs) and let the u-bolt be a little angled.

That's kinda what I was thinking, make some plates a little wider than normal and oval the outer holes to allow the ubolt to tilt.

I wonder about the center pin hole in the axle, is it located for 2" or 2.5" springs. If it's positioned for 2" then you may have to elongate it outward for a 2.5" spring.
 
Yep, you would have to elongate the center pin hole in the spring perch. Shouldn't make a difference, all the hole does is align the spring front to back while you're bolting everything up.
 
now would be the PERFECT time to redrill your perches to move your axle an inch forward (drill hole in in back and more away from the pumpkin to use the 2.5" springs) ;)
 
Just some actual facts for everyone.

Currie built a high pinion third member that uses 8.8 Ford gears out of the front of Explorers that retrofit into a 9" Ford housing. That is why they say what they say about the strength.

We ( www.truehi9.com ) are the ONLY people building an actual high pinion 9". We sold the first one in August of 2004.

A large number of big name winning comp teams have since switched to our Hi9 from high pinion D60s. They pay full price for our stuff when a lot of them can have sponsored high pinion D60s. I do not believe they would pay for something that is weaker if they could get something stronger for free or at least a substantially reduced cost. :laugh:

I assume other companies didn't build it since they would have not only had to built the third member casting but also multiple gearsets. High cost, low profit. The reason why we can't sponsor people. The money is in the product, not advertising.
 
The thing I want to know is, how much trouble am I going to have obtaining 35 spline front shafts for the ford 9, Thats the only problem I see right now, if you want PM me. as I am on the look out for a custom front axle...
 
It seems most people I've run across that run D60s break the stock shafts and end up buying aftermarket shafts sooner or later.

So you would be either commited to running an aftermarket shaft or building your housing to accomidate stock D60 shaft lengths.

The D60 35 spline shaft fits 9" 35 spline lockers.
 
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