I think my truck is trying to tell me something

[Yukon Jack]

So I was driving home from work two Thursdays ago in my 69 K20, going about 50 mph when all of a sudden there was an incredibly loud bang, followed by my truck diving to the right into another lane of traffic, narrowly missing striking a 1 ton Dodge crew cab followed by the front end shaking horribly. I thought for sure I'd struck that Dodge. I get pulled over expecting to find damage and a mad Dodge truck driver, but surprisingly we did not hit, he must have heard the noise and moved just enough to avoid collision. I did a quick inspection and couldn't find anything wrong which just didn't make any sense. Was able to pull onto a side road and then was able to get on empty dirt roads for the rest of the trip home, driving at about 15 mph. Wife and kids were also on their way home and when I reached home they were able to watch the truck and said the front passenger tire was wobbling. Turns out the outer housing of the hub broke completely around - I'll have to take a picture as I can't really describe the location of the break. Needless to say, the diameter of the hub on the closed knuckle axle is probably 4" and completely broke.

Just so happens that about two years ago I bought a 1984 1 ton crew cab for it's front axle and about three weeks ago I finally got it's dually hubs swapped with a friends Dana 60 SRW hubs (we both needed what the other had, except for gear ratio). So while I'd rather not have the break of my axle force me to do the install, it was going to happen in the next few weeks anyway.

Here's the donor beauty before loosing it's transfer case that ended up getting installed in my 69 K20 last winter when my Rockwell T221 gernaded, and before a buddy bought the rear axle for his gernaded Dana 60. Hmmm, lots of gernading going After selling the rear axle, this beauty cost me a whooping $600 - can't beat that for the front axle, NP205 and a spare SM465!



I've got the old axle out of the way and will be installing the Dana 60 soon. I bought the Superlift Dana 60 U-bolt kit for a pretty good price of $41 and I find it comes with studs rather than bolts. Hope to pick up a new gasket and rubber brake lines today and start installing the axle soon.

[Mudder]

Not so sure I have ever heard of that happening. Good defensive driving is not over rated.

[Yukon Jack]

Here is the 69 as she sits waiting the Dana 60



along with a pic of the Dana 60



the old Dana 44 axle



and a close up of the problem area - getting a light in there shows me that the big gap I was seeing must not be exactly as I thought.



The whole outer portion of the hub moves in and out about 3/8" but I think I am wrong about the hub breaking. Looks like something must have broken inside that is allowing the movement.

[72blue]

could it have been the bearing Yukon?

[Hoods69BadBowTie]

Holy **** wow that's pretty crazy! Glad to hear that you didn't end up hitting the dodge. Did you figure out what cause the problem yet or exactly what the problem is?

[Mike C]

Holy smokes Mark! Glad you avoided an accident AND you were setup to swap! Great buy on that truck, too. I picked up an '86 K30 dually,454, 4 speed, Dana 60 front, shop built steel flatbed with gooseneck last fall for $1800. I'd love to be able to find a parts truck like yours!

[Yukon Jack]

Sure could be the bearings - afraid I don't know enough about hubs to make much out of this. I'm definitely glad an accident didn't happened, very lucky in my mind! Also it was quite the bargain on the donor truck - it was almost too nice to be a donor vehicle but the prior owner had already started parting it out so made it easier for me :-)

[special-K]

I`m glad it`s just a weird part failure and not a catastrophe.it`s working out for the better,eh?
I`m anxious to see the damaged hub.i had some kind of failure of my outer hub a couple years ago.I could heard sounds like a water pump about to "grenade",only it didn`t change when I revved the engine.I checked everything for heat and just kept on rollin`real easy.My son was home alone,it was a coldass evening,and I was an hour and a half from home.When I pulled off my exit the wheel was loping.once home,I reached under and felt the rotor and burned my fingers (it was dark).i got a flashlight and saw the blue knob was melted with a pinwheel design of melted plastic on the chrome ring and it looks all rusty inside like there after a fire.The bearing was disintegrated.The threads on the spindle were stripped for about 1/2".bit,the hub housing pulled through.This was on the`72.

[litebulblsc]

Hey Yukon,
It looks like you are swapping a disc front end in for a drum front end. If this is true, you will need to update your master cylinder and combination valve for your brakes to work properly

[Burt4x4]

I had that happen to me years ago w/my D44. It was a learning curve as I just serviced the wheelbearings and made one side too tight. A freeway drive to a buddys house got the w/b so hot they melted and BANG pulled too one side then was "free" again. Got to my buddys house and when I touched the hub it burned my finger tips! I had to used a blow torch to the brearings to get the hub off
Carniage is the best reason to upgrade
Good Luck YJ!

[Yukon Jack]

Originally Posted by litebulblsc

Hey Yukon,
It looks like you are swapping a disc front end in for a drum front end. If this is true, you will need to update your master cylinder and combination valve for your brakes to work properly

Yep, previously added hydroboost from a different donor 1 ton and have a proportioning valve on the way to adjust the system.

This swap gains me strength of course but I'm actually more excited about the disk brakes and the much better turning radius I'm gonna get - that closed knuckle axle had such a terrible turning radius!

[DirtyLarry]

Good save on avoiding the accident!

Man, I can’t believe you waited 2 years to yank that 60 out of the donor truck and put it in the ’69! That 60 would have lasted about 10 minutes after the donor got home before it got yanked if it were me.

You might want to throw in a fresh set of king pins in that 60 while you are at it. As strong as the 60’s are it seems every one of them needs a fresh set of king pins after about 10 years of service.

I could sure use that NP205 if it is has a 32 spline input and round bolt pattern for my NV4500 swap if you ever want to get rid of it.

[Yukon Jack]

The 205 is now in my 69 and it was a 10 spline unit.

[special-K]

She`s gettin`better all the time.You know you "have arrived" when you have a Dana60 up front.It`s our equivalent to the yuppy...uh,you fill in the blank.

[msgross]

will you need one of those Ujoints with two different sizes built into it?

[BLAZERMAN]

And just think Mark...your gonna gain another inch up front..just what ya need!

[DirtyLarry]

Originally Posted by Yukon Jack

The 205 is now in my 69 and it was a 10 spline unit.

Good deal. I guess I assumed that crew cab donor was an automatic for some reason hence the 32 spine 205 comment. Seems most of them were.

[Yukon Jack]

Originally Posted by msgross

will you need one of those Ujoints with two different sizes built into it?

Nope the front driveshaft u-joint is the same size, no need for a conversion like you would use if you swapped in a 14 bolt out back. I'm relatively certain I will have to have my front driveshaft modified though lengthwise. When I swapped in the NP205 my old driveshaft wasn't long enough and I didn't modify it then as I knew the Dana 60 was going in when I got around to it.

[Yukon Jack]

Originally Posted by BLAZERMAN

And just think Mark...your gonna gain another inch up front..just what ya need!

Yep, that is something I just didn't need. Gonna make those 35"s look even smaller and make my daughters jump higher to get in

[special-K]

Well,you finally got that round tuit.

[Yukon Jack]

My spring plates arrived today from a ck5.com boardmember so I'm another step closer to bolting in the Dana 60 axle!

Got the axle sealed up and filled with very cold 80W90 - it's sitting under the springs as we speak waiting for me to get to bolting it into place.

Hopefully will have more picture laden updates before long.

[Yukon Jack]

When I get the axle in place and start tightening down the u-bolts I've found the studs for the passenger side u-bolt plate are not threaded enough.

Got a couple 3" 5/8" bolts picked up today and got the axle snugged in to place. Fingers were a bit numb (17 degrees out) and didn't have time to do more so here is a minimal pic update.

[special-K]

17 degrees will turn a pleasure like installing a Dana60 into...uh,not much fun?

[msgross]

I just bought a $50 40,000 BTU reddyheater myself... no excuses for me not getting into the garage this winter!

[Yukon Jack]

Have had very little time lately to work on my truck - seems every time I got out to work on it I was making very little progress due to some brake line fitting issues and screwing with the current steering setup. But, got the brake lines done yesterday and hooked the steering up and went for a test drive. The passenger side front disk is grabbing but the driver side is only contacting the rotor in two small areas. I only drove for about 1 mile though so I think driving some more and breaking up the surface rust should get that straightened out. Still need to bleed the brakes a little more I think as the pedal pressure varied a bit.

Regarding the steering, the 69 had a closed knuckle axle and when I lifted it I used an adjustable drop drag link for steering correction - it is the only option for that axle. I had planned to use it for the Dana 60 for the time being but to have full steering the thread engagement of the drag ling ends is below the minimal recommended engagement. Right now I've got it with enough thread engagement but that is preventing full turning.

Due to this I've been looking at cross-over steering options. I'm looking at kits from Sky Manufacturing, ORD and Ballistic Fab. The Sky kit is $375 and I would also replace the king pin springs and bushing for like $20 for a total price of $400. The ORD kit would be $440 plus the king pin parts of $20. I like Ballistic Fab's setup as it deletes the king pin spring.

From what I can tell, the hi-steer setup from Ballistic Fab comes in lower than the high steer kit from ORD and isn't that much more than the crossover kit from ORD. Ballistic Fab's 2 arm kit is $280, then the draglink and tierod plus ends kit is $240, add a pitman arm already reamed out from another vendor for about $70 to $85 and that brings the whole price for the Ballistic Fab hi-steer to $590 to $605. Assuming I'm not missing something - that beats the heck out of ORD's $800 hi-steer kit plus you've deleted the king pin springs and isn't much above the $460 for ORD's crossover and new king pin parts.

I can't say I need hi-steer for the use of my truck but Ballistic Fab's hi-steer setup ends up being about $130 more than ORD's standard $440 crossover kit and allows me to delete the king pin springs.

At this point I'm leaning towards Ballistic Fab's setup even though it is overkill for my needs.