Ford Hp60 Swap into 94-01 Dodge Ram

By Madd Ramm

Introduction

The purpose of this Tech Article is to detail the process of swapping in a leaf sprung Ford Hi-pinion Dana 60 into a coil sprung, 5 link 1500 Dodge Ram. I am constantly receiving questions about this swap since I performed it in the summer of 2002. I have here the detailed account of the axle swap as well as the challenges and possible solutions for others to use to successfully accomplish this task.

The process that this axle swap undertakes is somewhat universal to all axle swaps when converting a leaf-sprung axle to coil spring setup. This article will cover the basics required for the swap and at the end have a Review, Ideas and Future Actions section to provide alternative solutions for those that will undertake a similar swap; please learn from the challenges I faced so as not to repeat the same problems! This tech article will not go into detail about the various aspects of rebuilding hubs, installing seals, etc.; that will be for other tech articles. The object of the install is to convert the Dana 60 to coil springs so that it would become a bolt-up axle. I want to give a HUGE thanks to Paul Cleary from my local club, Tidewater Fourwheelers! He provided a plethora of advice, did all the welding of the brackets and installed the gears on this Dana 60. Thanks a ton Paul! Also, Steve Gardner (The Beast) from Pavementsucks.com offered a ton of emotional support. He was the individual that helped convince me I could accomplish this project and to pick up the sweet deal of a Dana 60 I found on eBay! Now, before we begin the easy and straightforward Tech Install, we need to answer one important question, 'Why the Ford Dana 60?'

Why the Ford Hi-pinion Dana 60? There are many reasons; selectable hubs, greater strength, no CAD (center axle disconnect), large 1 ton brakes, better driveline angles and possibly the strong kingpins depending on the year. The Dodge axles from '94-present use the weak unitized hub bearing assemblies that spin constantly; the manual hubs on the Ford D60 are a Godsend for selectability! Also, the old hub design is inherently stronger and rebuildable. The housing strength is a no-brainer and not having the troublesome CAD eliminates the troubles there. The larger brakes are a big bonus as well as 35 spline inner shafts. Also, the hi-pinion/reverse cut gear setup adds strength as the gears are driving on the 'drive' side of the gears and the hi-pinion housing helps with driveline angles. As to the kingpins, they are stronger than ball joints and allow the possibility of hi-steer. BUT LET ME MAKE THIS CLEAR, THE DODGE 5 LINK COIL SPRUNG SUSPENSION MAKES IT VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO RUN HI-STEER AND ALSO THE KINGPINS CREATE CLEARANCE PROBLEMS WITH THE TRACBAR AND COILSPRINGS THAT I WILL COVER LATER IN THE ARTICLE! For this reason, any Dodge Ram owner looking to do this swap would be advised to pay attention to the suggestions I give at the end of this article or get a newer Ford D60 that uses Ball joints rather than the famous old school '79 Ford D60 or other kingpinned Dana 60. Now that we have laid the foundation for this Ford Dana 60 Tech Article, lets get down to the action!!!

Tech instal

First a pic of the truck just as I was getting into the install. Here you can see the rear springs removed as I began to take the axles off.

Lets start with the Dana 60 front-
First, you must find the Ford Dana 60 that you want to swap in. Usually they cost from $800-$1200; prices as high as $1500 are not uncommon. To make you drool, I scored mine for only $700 fully rebuilt, minus the brakes, in this beautiful condition!

After acquiring the Dana 60, the decision must be made whether to make custom coil buckets/brackets or to use the old ones from a donor axle. For me the decision was easy, I had recently swapped in a junkyard 2000 D44 that actually had the housing slightly tweaked and rotated, unbeknownst to me. It lasted 2 days under my rig before imploding! You can see it in the first pic sitting under my truck. In this pic, you can see where a fellow club member Paul torched the housing to get the brackets off whole. However, when installing, we couldn't just slide them on; they had to be cut right where I put the red line. When welding these coil buckets on, special care was taken to make sure that the buckets sit level while the axle was tilted a few degrees to run the caster desired. Once the coil bucket/top bracket was fitted onto the axle, the lower control arm mount was rewelded into place.

Now I will discuss the inherent problems encountered with this instal. The Ford D60 has huge kingpins that necessitated the coil buckets being moved inbound on the axle by '' on EACH side! Also, the sway bar mount makes POSITIVE contact with the Skyjacker Tracbar Drop Bracket!!!! Once I realized this, I converted over to the DT tracbar setup because I could work with the bracket. Also, with the passenger side mounts moved inbound, this meant I HAD to have a tracbar that could be adjusted to reflect the shorter distance between mounts. The problems are detailed in the next pic where the colored arrows point to the problem areas.

The RED arrow shows where the Skyjacker drop bracket was! It rested firmly on the coil bucket thus eliminating any and all need for a suspension! The truck and axle would be destroyed if I drove like this! The BLUE arrow points from the lowest point on the DT drop bracket down to where it just misses the sway bar eye-mount. However, between the blue and red arrows is the little YELLOW arrow showing how the DT bracket slopes upward; this meant that the front of the coil bucket still had to be removed. Finally, the GREEN arrow points to the bottom of the coil bucket/shock tower extension. About 1" of this had to be ground off. With the axle brackets moved in '', that meant that the Skyjacker lift bracket would hit this small amount of metal, as detailed by the PURPLE arrow.

Here is another picture showing how the DT tracbar bracket clears the sway bar mount and front of the coil bucket. The RED arrows once again demonstrate the Skyjacker tracbar bracket and how it angles out from the frame mount. It is clear now to see how the Skyjacker bracket made full contact with the coil bucket.

Unfortunately, with the DT bracket sloping up and to the back, the coil bucket would still smack the DT bracket when hitting a large pothole or trying to flex. In this picture I show the slightly shaved sway bar mount/coil bucket just before totally removing it the front. The YELLOW arrow shows the cut I made; I had to totally lop off the front of the whole setup. The blue arrow shows where there is rust on the DT bracket from having whacked the front of the coil bucket. As you can see, this front D60 does not easily facilitate the front suspension of the coil sprung 5 link Dodge Ram.

These next pics show the axle after mock up and complete assembly of the housing.

Now the next step was to actually get the brakes plumbed. This was an easy and straightforward task though required the use of nontraditional parts. The Ford Dana 60 calipers use an oddball 3/8ths fine-threaded banjo bolt to feed the brake fluid inside the caliper. I went through an aftermarket parts supplier because the average parts store didn't seem to carry any in their parts bins. I went through American Street Rod because they have great prices and every single oddball brake part I needed. I was able to pick up the 3/8ths fine-threaded banjo bolts, the large banjo blocks and stainless steel braided brake line with the correct fittings to match my hardline ends; 3/16ths end is what I believe Dodge uses. Once you have these items, you only have to attach them to your existing hardline. There is one more piece needed. On the driver's side is the small distribution block that Dodge uses to divert the fluid between the driver's and passenger lines. The driver's side goes directly into the rubber line while there is hardline out the side to go to the passenger side. Here, I just fitted a small compression t-block from the local parts store to match the incoming hardline, the side-going hardline and the new stainless steel line for the driver's side. This pic is of the stock setup with the RED arrow pointing to the stock setup that was removed and the BLUE arrows showing the stock hardline that was bolted into the compression fitting. The YELLOW arrow depicts the new stainless steel line that was used.

Finally, the last step is to have a custom Inverted-T steering setup made. The stock Inverted-T or Inverted-Y, depending on year, will not fit. Due to the size of the Dana 60 knuckles, the distance between two tie rod mounting points is a few inches narrower. Also, I hope that you can tell by now'. having a direct Crossover system or Hi-steer setup is impossible with the Dodge 5 link coil spring setup. The kingpins are so close to the coil springs, that if you were to mount any type of steering arm on them, the steering arm would saw in between the coils of the springs! Also, with the tracbar and associated brackets, there is no place for the tie rod to move if it were placed that high. You would literally have to cut a hole through the bracket and through the tracbar itself and then make it much larger to accommodate the movement of the axle counter to that of the tracbar. However, I do not believe that the Hi-steer or direct Crossover setup is necessary for 99.9% of the Rams. The tie rod is not below the axle housing itself; it is raised sufficiently up so as to not to get hung up on rocks. It can still get whacked by a rock sticking up, but it is higher than it was stock. Also, the draglink doesn't need to run up high either because there are a variety of drop pitman arms available to keep the draglink parallel to the tracbar and as level as possible. As a side note, if a truck is lifted so high that it needs the draglink up higher, there is a possible way to move it up. I have been playing around with the idea to at least use a steering arm off the top of the passenger side kingpin. The arm would have to be custom made so as to literally be machined to angle out close to the tire so that it doesn't swing inside the coil spring. Or at the very least, shave the inside edge of a regular arm so that it doesn't contact the coil spring. This way, the draglink could at least be made to run more level. However, a tracbar mount on one side of the tracbar or the other would have to be made to make it run at the same parallel angle as the tracbar to avoid the stress and bumpsteer issues caused by the two being at different angles. Here is a picture of the Inverted-T setup that I had Shakerbuilt make.

Conclusion
This completes the Ford Hi-pinion Dana 60 Axle Swap into a 1500 Dodge Ram. It should be noted that there were many difficulties involved in this. Most of the people that swapped in hi-pinion Dana 60s, before I did this, usually went to Dynatrac and had one custom made. The reason for this is that you could get them made an extra 2' wider so that the hassles with the kingpins and coil buckets could be avoided. Also, the DT tracbar bracket and adjustable tracbar would not be an absolute necessity; the Skyjacker tracbar bracket and stock tracbar would work. However, I didn't have thousands of dollars to spend and wanted the challenge. So please be aware, there are sacrifices to this project ' no more sway bar, mandatory removal of the front of the coil bucket/sway bar mount, stock brake lines not matching to Dana 60 brakes, the necessity of a different tracbar setup as well as the kingpins not being utilized to their full potential with hi-steer due to the cumbersome 5 link coil spring suspension. Here is a pic of the completed truck.

Review, Ideas and Future Action

One year after this project was begun, I must say that I have loved having the selectable hubs and not having to replace the gay unitized hub bearing assemblies every few months. The strength is amazing; I don't have to worry about breaking shafts, hubs, knuckles, and ball joints anymore. However, as I have mentioned in the Introduction and the Conclusion, the dodge 5 link coil spring suspension limits the full potential of the Hi-pinion Dana 60. As of this writing, full plans are in effect to complete a leaf spring conversion on the front end of the Ram coupled with a shackle reversal. The coil spring suspension flexes quite well and is an all around good setup. However, the need for a tracbar, the geometry demands, the changes that were done to make the Dana 60 fit as well as the Dana 60's potential not being fully realized, have all lead me to want a simpler leaf spring setup!!!

If you are looking into this swap, here are a couple of ideas to help prevent running into the challenges I did.

1). To avoid the coil bucket being moved in so far and creating all of the clearance problems, one could simply convert over to coilovers. The coilovers have a much smaller diameter and would be attached in the stock shock location in the middle of the bucket. Essentially, the side of the coil bucket could be chopped off so that nothing has to be moved in bound. This would also enable the use of the stock sway bar! Just make sure you use coilovers that have enough flex, cuz the Dodge suspension will flex like crazy if you allow it. The downside to this is the cost of most quality coilovers.

2). Another possible option (one that I am seriously considering doing myself if I don't convert to leaf springs), the fabricator can remove the coil bucket from the lower supports and raise it! This will be like a coil spacer lift. What this will do is raise the coil bucket higher than the kingpin and not have to be moved in bound ''. The rest of the bracketry doesn't get in the way of the kingpin/knuckle, so with the coil bucket raised higher than the kingpin, the whole assembly can stay in its stock location. In the first pic, I show the clearance available after the axle had been installed and running for a short time. It appears as though there is plenty of clearance between bucket and kingpin, but be aware that the edges/corners of that kingpin will swing in on both the front and back as the steering knuckle turns left and right! There was no more room to move it all closer. In the second pic, I show how the coil bucket can be removed from the rest of the stock bracket assembly with the YELLOW marking. Once it has been removed, it can be raised a few inches. It would be wise to use thick gauge steel and possibly some extra gussets on the inside or something just to add extra insurance for support. However, it can't sit right above the kingpin either, because then you wouldn't be able to take the kingpin cap off; so make sure the bucket has enough lift. This raising of the bucket is reliable and strong, so there is no need to worry that the coil is higher above the bracketry. One thing I noticed from the pic is that also the assembly will be almost on the inner 'C' knuckle. I do not know if this will stress the inner knuckle enough to warrant any concern'.but it is wise to note that and take into consideration! Also, by lifting the coil, this will equate to suspension lift of 2-4' depending on how high you raise the bucket. Other areas such as steering will be affected and need to be addressed just like with any suspension lift.

As you can see, this axle swap was fraught with challenges and sacrifices. I am sure that there are others out there with the skills to work the coil buckets and brackets so as to easily clear the kingpins and not sacrifice the loss of the sway bar or have the tracbar and bracket issues. This was a difficult yet fun project to undertake. Those that swapped in Hi-pinion Ford Dana 60 axles before me usually ordered custom made housings. I have heard a rumor of one other person doing this swap of the original Hi-pinion Ford Dana 60. But as of this date, no proof has been found. I take pride in being the first to have accomplished this with the help of Paul Cleary and support of Steve Gardner. The rewards and benefits of this axle outweigh the problems I encountered. It is my hope that this tech article will serve as a general guideline for swapping in custom axles in the Dodge Ram and other coil sprung vehicles. At the date of this writing, I know of at least 7 people that were inspired by this swap, now performing identical swaps. If you want extreme, don't mind the changes involved and want the benefits of a Hi-pinion Dana 60 with manual hubs, then this is the swap for you.