lowrider with a 4x4 conversion question

[tybob81]

I have always been a fan of slamed trucks. I have had many 4x4 but never did much for swaping axles on them. My question is about a 4x4 conversion on a 76 F250 crew cab short bed frame. I will be running a divorced hi boy transfer case and crossmember. I was thinking about the 99 and up dana 50? front axle and the matching 10.25? for the rear with possibly the super duty wide leaf springs. Feel free to comment on this, thats what I am wanting. It will be a daily driver and have nothing bigger than a 35" tire. I thought about the old dana 44 and dana 60 fronts, but I am wanting later model wheel bolt pattern, disc brakes and ease of finding parts new.

[averagef250]

What part of your question does the lowrider part of your title connect to?

The 79 and older front axles had less pinion offset than the newer axles and about a 32" spring center distance. The 1980 through 2003 or so axles had spring centers around 4" wider. The current superduty axles are coil sprung.

You have to consider frame spacing, ride height and steering to figure what's going to work best for you. From my own experience the 80-03 or so axles with their wider leaf spring spacing make the rear spring shackle a small challenge for how the inside edge of the spring is about even with inside of the vertical section of the frame rails. I cut a slot for the shackle to pass through and fabbed spring mounts for urathane bushings, etc. I used a 2wd box then a 78-79 4 bolt box to steer off the tie rod as the newer trucks do.

If I were to not care about the original appearance of the truck and could live with the metric lug pattern wheels and unit bearing hubs I'd search out the wrecked frame and axles from a newer coil sprung super duty and graft the front suspension onto the older frame, but probably still use a 78-79 steering box since it does mount much cleaner than the new stuff.

As front axles go the leaf sprung 1980-97 trucks used the dana 44 TTB (twin traction beam) under light F-250's, the TTB Dana 50 under heavier F-250's and 80-85 F-350's, The kingpin Dana 60 solid axle axle under 86-91.5 F-350's, the balljoint Dana 60 under 92-97 F-350's, The Dana 50 metric pattern solid front axle under 98-00 super duty 250 and 350 trucks, The dana 60 metric solid front axle under 01-03 or so and the newest ones still have a dana 60 front axle with the coil springs iirc.