D60 value

I'm currently stationed in england and have come across a set of D60's in a protoype vehicle that never made it into production. Needless to say that's a VERY rare find over here. How much is a set of DODGE dana 60's go for in the states?? Right now the guy wants about $1000 for the truck there in but we'll see.

Yes there passenger side drop (right side) and are set up for rhd steering but that would be easily fixed. Oh ya, leaf springs front and rear.

Make a good axle for a scrambler project??

Yes, $1k for a pair of 60's in good condition is vary fair. Are you sure it's not a 70 rear? If it's a 60 rear, you might luck out and find that it's a 35 spline unit.

Simplest way to check is to get the BOM numbers from the axle tubes.

Having been building a Dodge front 60 for my XJ, they've got a few things to watch out for...

- Lack of hub choices. The Dodge hubs are external, which means that they stick out really far and are weaker compared to the Chevy/Ford internal style. Your only lockout choices are Superwinch and Milemarker (which at least has a lifetime guarantee) but neither are very stout, and there are NO 35-spline upgrades for those hubs either. The other alternative is just to run fixed drive flanges (what I'm doing).

- the center chunk is pretty far offset to the passenger side. Scramblers tend to have pretty narrow frame widths so you may end up having to outboard the springs somewhat to clear the cast perch on the center chunk.

- the Dodge axles have a somewhat undesirable caster spec from factory too. Standard setup on those trucks was for 0* pinion angle and 5* caster. This means that unless you cut and rotate the inner C's, your pinion will either hang low or your driveability will suffer from a lack of caster.

Aside from that though...the Dodge knuckles are considered by many to be the strongest OEM kingpin-60 knuckles available, and the front will have 4.10 gears and 35-spline inners most likely, with the non-neckdown shafts appearing in the late-80s axles.

It's a stout setup for sure, but there are just some quirks to the Dodge fronts axles. I got mine for free which greatly influenced my choice to use it, but if I were buying one I probably would have looked for a Chevy one first.

vetteboy said:

Having been building a Dodge front 60 for my XJ, they've got a few things to watch out for...

- Lack of hub choices. The Dodge hubs are external, which means that they stick out really far and are weaker compared to the Chevy/Ford internal style. Your only lockout choices are Superwinch and Milemarker (which at least has a lifetime guarantee) but neither are very stout, and there are NO 35-spline upgrades for those hubs either. The other alternative is just to run fixed drive flanges (what I'm doing).

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Not entirely true, in late 1990, they switched to internal GM/Ford style snap ring hubs. The external ones do suck, however.

CRASH said:

Not entirely true, in late 1990, they switched to internal GM/Ford style snap ring hubs. The external ones do suck, however.

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This is true...I think I just assumed from his description that these would be older axles.

If it has the NP203 case (w/full time) then it probably has the fixed drive flanges on it anyway. Most of them did. Here's what the hub stickout looks like with those on OEM wheels:





(of course they look prettier now)

CRASH said:

Not entirely true, in late 1990, they switched to internal GM/Ford style snap ring hubs. The external ones do suck, however.

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actually in the late 90's, they switched to unit bearing front ends with a cnetral axle dis-connect. And there was somebody on pirate4x4 that will broche out your hubs to 35 spline for you, but I am not sure he is still doing it.


Oh wait never mind crash it right late 1990......not 90's

CartsXJ said:

actually in the late 90's, they switched to unit bearing front ends with a cnetral axle dis-connect. And there was somebody on pirate4x4 that will broche out your hubs to 35 spline for you, but I am not sure he is still doing it.


Oh wait never mind crash it right late 1990......not 90's

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Yeah, '90 saw a change to the standard Chevy style lockout hub. Figures that one of these axles came in the yard just about when I finished building my older one to completion.

IIRC '94 is when they changed to the unit bearing, when the Dodge trucks saw their first major redesign in over a decade. My '97 Ram has them (and the disconnect) for sure.

I don't think there's anyone who will do work on the lockout hubs anymore. Several people though will bore out & respline the drive flanges like I've got to fit 35-spline shafts though, and there's even a DIY way where you take a 35-spline open diff side gear from a 60 or 70 and weld it in the middle of a blank drive flange plate. Plenty of room left here for boring and re-splining:



I figure I'll do that once I start snapping the 30-spline outers. 4.0 motor + 185:1 ratio...who knows...

Vette,

Can you use Chevy outers, complete, on the Dodge? What about using the 1990-1993 hubs on your spindle?

From Vette:

A complete set of Chevy stuff from the knuckles out can bolt right on to the Dodge axle, and I *believe* the part numbers for all the Chevy and Dodge stubs are the same. I'm not sure how far in the assembly you can go and find the same stuff - I know you need at least the hubs. and possibly the spindles, and I guess the knuckle if the spindle bolt pattern is different.

I'm planning on running for a while with the flanges and seeing how it goes, and if I decide it's worth the effort of changing everything over to lockouts then it'll happen. For now I'll probably make a set of un-splined drive flanges to disengage the front shaft when just driving around...it's just a snap ring and 8 small bolts on each side to change 'em up.

Must be christmas!! I found another dana 60!! Guys got it on ebay says it's a rear axle out of a car(not sure what car). 60" wide, 2.93 ratio. 42" between the spring pads. Any ideas what this may have come from? Says it has the small ford wheel pattern which I'm thinking is 5X4.5. Didn't these come in old mopars? Were these good axles? Anything to watch out for?

Guys gonna take some pics tomorrow and get any #'s on the tubes.

Did you end up putting the first pair of 60's into your scrambler, or not buy them?

ponyracer1 said:

Must be christmas!! I found another dana 60!! Guys got it on ebay says it's a rear axle out of a car(not sure what car). 60" wide, 2.93 ratio. 42" between the spring pads. Any ideas what this may have come from? Says it has the small ford wheel pattern which I'm thinking is 5X4.5. Didn't these come in old mopars? Were these good axles? Anything to watch out for?

Guys gonna take some pics tomorrow and get any #'s on the tubes.

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Yeah, 70's Barracudas etc. had the Dana 60 option, with 5 x 4.5 bolt pattern, semi-float shafts, and narrow width. I don't know any specifics about spline count or shaft diameter but I know they're generally regarded as bombproof for the muscle car application.

The 2.93:1 ratio scares me though - that has Dana 61 written all over it, because the numerically-low carrier for a regular 60 is only supposed to go down to 3.33:1. I would see if you could get the BOM from the tube and run it to find out exactly what's there...if it's a Dana 61 then it becomes a lot more difficult (but not impossible) to go deeper on gearing, and I think you might be stuck with a lunchbox-type locker to go with it.

vetteboy said:

Yeah, 70's Barracudas etc. had the Dana 60 option, with 5 x 4.5 bolt pattern, semi-float shafts, and narrow width. I don't know any specifics about spline count or shaft diameter but I know they're generally regarded as bombproof for the muscle car application.

The 2.93:1 ratio scares me though - that has Dana 61 written all over it, because the numerically-low carrier for a regular 60 is only supposed to go down to 3.33:1. I would see if you could get the BOM from the tube and run it to find out exactly what's there...if it's a Dana 61 then it becomes a lot more difficult (but not impossible) to go deeper on gearing, and I think you might be stuck with a lunchbox-type locker to go with it.

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I don't think they put D61 in muscle cars, but who knows. I do know that that D60 if original housing can go for BIG money to the right people. If it is an original it will have 35 spline semi-floating shafts.

CartsXJ said:

I don't think they put D61 in muscle cars, but who knows.

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I didn't think so either, but I know they made the D61 housing because they couldn't do 3.07s for diesel rigs while keeping the D60 pinion offset. Some of the Chrysler cars (specifically the police ones) had some pretty low gears like that, but they didn't use the D60.

The mystery deepens!! I called the guy and he's going to take some pics tomorrow as well as get the bom #'s. I even sent him the link off pirate that shows where he should look.

I'll post up pics and info tommorow so you can see what it looks like. Oh yea did I mention it's for sale for less than $75??

Man that would be sweet. Cal, I let the first set pass. Still regret not buying them.

Well the guy can't manage to get a pic uploaded, this is his response about the numbers. Does this make any sense to anyone? I can't find anything on the numbers.

As far as i can tell the numbers on the bottom of the casing are [3723599][ 10325]. not sur ethe 3 in the second lot of numbers is 3 or 8 Hope that...more