Dana 60 Conversion for my Travelette | Tom Mandera's Big Sky Binders

I bought my 1974 Travelette at the end of June 2001. I wanted a 4x4, but found a nice 2wd truck.

After a while, I found out that eventually I was going to have to do something - the rotors are not to the "discard" point, but they're not too far from it, and new rotors for the A-arm 74/75 3/4 & 1T pickups are not available at any price.

Plus, I've gotten stuck a few too many times with the truck - it's definitely worthless in the winter, and not great on wet grass, either.

So a plan to convert it to 4x4 was hatched, and I started collecting parts, including a Dodge Dana 60 basket case, and a 74 200 4x4 pickup that I parted out, and even a '79 Chevy C30 4x4 which is going to donate the hydroboost brakes and the front springs (instead of the 3/4T 200 springs).

I've been talking about this for years.. time to make some progress.

--- 4/30/2007 --- First thing is to get the Dana 60 put together so it's ready to go when I tear into the pickup.

Thanks to a too-worn rotor, I won't have all of the 60 together until next week, but we'll see what I get done this weekend anyhow.

I bought a Dodge Dana 60 a few years back for $75. Housing and knuckles from a '75 D600.

$500 or so later I bought some 4.30 gears, an open carrier, bearings, etc. and had 'em installed by a buddy (that took 2 or 3 years to get done). The pinion yoke is a 1310 series.

Got it home, put it on some jack stands on top of some cheap wheel dollies, and threw some paint on it.

Also, some time ago, I buddy found a pair of Dodge knuckles-out at the junkyard. $125 later, they were mine.

I also sourced some used neck-down inner axle shafts, a handful of the 30sp stubs, bought the 30sp external Selectro hubs.

Recently I bought ~$200 in Kingpin type parts from Parts Mike.. King-pin rebuild kit, spindle bearing and seal kit, wheel bearing seals.

This week, another $200-$250 was spent on calipers, pads, rotors, and brake hoses for an '85 W350.

So.. first off, the caliper.

Then the upper kingpin cap / steering arm.

Then the drive-flange comes off..

Upper and lower kingpin stuff.

The wheel bearings were retained with a hex nut, like most Scouts. I didn't have a socket handy, and I have new "4-pin" style nuts anyhow, so the chisel was used.

Then I'm left with the spindle n' such still affixed to the knuckle.

Wheel hub loose

Used wheel bearings - inner on top.

Clean up and inspection says the bearings are fine and after a trip through the parts washer, they're ready for repacking.

Dust shield off..

Caliper bracket off..

On a SII Dana 44, it's a 9/16" socket for the spindle nuts.. keep your 3/4" handy for the 60 studs.

Spindle off.

I then used a pry-bar down through the spindle from the snout to the back, caught the little needle bearing cage, and applied some force from the sledge hammer and popped the bearings out.

Then the spindles went into the parts washer, too.

One knuckle-out of a Dana 60

One rotor was too far gone, so I ordered two ($30 each). Also ordered two new calipers, Dodge brake hoses, new pads. The rotors and one caliper show up next week, so I can't finish putting the 60 back together until then, but I can put it back together enough that I can get it installed and work on the new spring hangers and such.

--------------- 5/13/2007

Time to put some paint on these parts..

So I loaded up the spray gun and spent some time painting.

While the paint dried, I started on the job of putting fresh grease into the used U-joints and axle shafts I had acquired.

Time to get my $70 in core charges back for the new calipers, too.

And after determining the rotors were bad (well, one was) I pressed the studs out on the press and then cleaned up and painted the wheel hubs, too.

Then back to real work - pounding out the lower king pin races and dust caps with a long punch.

Working on the axle on jack stands, I turned it over to make re-install easy..

I used a hunk of flat stock lying around to drive the new races into place, then used the old race to finish driving the new race into place.

Pack the new bearing with grease, install, and then put the new seal in place.

After I installed the lower king pin cap, I discovered I'd been sent two extra spindle-rebuild-kits, and was short two nylon bushings for the upper king pin rebuild.

Time to order more parts again..

With the nylon bushings finally in hand, I assembled the knuckles to the housing. Then finished with the axle shafts and installed them, freshened up the spindles with new needle bearings and some seals, and got things assembled. Since that time, I've actually gone on to pack the wheel bearings and install them, and mounted to the wheel hubs to the spindles, but discovered my 1/2T D44 4-pin socket is a bit too small for the new 4-pin D60 nuts, so I need a new spanner socket before I can finish that up. For the moment, I've put the 60 swap on hold AGAIN.. plans have changed for RMIHR, and we're planning to drive a Scout II down instead, because among other things there wasn't time to get the 60 swap and AC working in the Travelette. Of course, that means I have time to rethink my plan.. and I'm leaning towards some coil-over brackets from Ballistic Fabrication and building some radius arms and keeping the stock 3800lbs front coils, but with a solid axle Dana 60 instead. Should yield a better ride, and might help resolve some clearance issues I suspect I'll have if I go forward with hanging the Chevy leaf springs under the truck. It also means no need to change the steering box out for the 4x4 unit, and the anti-sway bar won't have any clearance issues, either.