Shortening a Front Dana 60

DANA 60 MANUAL  (Adobe Acrobat file 10.4 MB)

For this project I am using a 1985 Dodge Dana 60. It's BOM (bill of material) number is 610236-1, you get this off the long tube. DANA'S BOM GUIDE, for looking up that number so you can tell what that axle came out of. This axle came out of a 1985-1988 Dodge D-600/D-700. Since the  parts store does not have this truck in any of their computers or books, I needed to get parts for a 1985 W-350 GVWR 4,500, this is Dodge's heavy 1 ton 4x4. The lighter versions used ball joints. Only the heaviest GVWR used the king pin D60.

 I will be shortening the long side 4" and the short side 1", so this axle will match my rear 14 Bolt. I will also be sharing some rebuilding tips and Dana 60 general information.

14 Bolt 63" Wide

Here's is the worlds finest Front D60 web page. It has everything you could imagine on it for information. BILLA VISTA'S D60 PAGE

For the start of mine I disassembled it completely so I could grind off the inner knuckle (C Knuckle that's welded to the axle tube).

To the left is the passenger side before I started grinding and to the right I am about 1/2 way done grinding.

You have to grind that weld off, so you want to slightly go into the tube and more into the knuckle. Grind until you see a fine line around the tube. Once you see that fine hairline you are ready to beat off the C-Knuckle with a sledge hammer.

Here you see the drivers side of the tube after I have beat off the C-Knuckle.

Once you get both C-Knuckles off you are ready to cut the axle tube down.  For my application I want to be at 64" at the wheel mounting surface. So I cut the long side down 4"  and the short side 1", this also keeps the "pumpkin" centered, allowing me to use the stock spring pad that is cast into it.

Now that the tubes are cut down to the correct length, it's time to start putting things back together.

With the C-Knuckles off I replaced the king pin stud along with the bottom race and dust cap. To do this I heated up the knuckle with a torch while I hit it with a 3/4" impact gun, for the stud I used an old truck lug nut. Even with all of this it took some time to come out. Once out you can easily beat the race out.

Now that they are ready, I need to set the pinion and caster angle. For this I used the old pinion angle minus two degrees, since I'm running more torque with larger tires. For the caster angle I'm setting it at 6 degrees positive. The caster angle is what allows your vehicle to "return to center" once you've made your turn. Positive angle is when the top ball joint or in this case king pin is tilting towards the rear of the vehicle.

Here are several pictures showing me setting the pinion angle to 10 degrees.

With that set, it's time to put the knuckles on and set them to positive 6 degrees.

Here you can see the axle with both C-Knuckles on it and all the angles set. I haven't welded anything yet, I'm going to triple check everything once it's under the Jeep and I have the weight on it.

I now have the axle under the Jeep. I am running a high steer setup on it, with the tie rod behind the axle. I am running it behind the axle for several reasons. First being that with the axle forward 2 inches, I am running into problems hitting the pitman arm and drag link, and second, I am going to be using Hydro-Assist Steering on it. And with the axle cut down 5", this doesn't leave me a lot of places to mount it. I will have pictures up soon, awaiting on my wheel stub conversion to be done. I'll explain this later.

For the steering details you can view them here.

PARTS GUIDE FOR THIS AXLE