'70 Dart 392 Project; what direction?
Got a little bit of a decision to make on the rearend... I've got an 8 3/4 housing here and a 741 case/open with 3:23 gears. Pricing everything out on Doctor Diff's website and I think I'm around $1600 for axles/rebuild kits/bearings/suregrip/brake kit...etc I've emailed Cass a few times, but they're closed for the next week. When I asked for advice on rebuilding my centersection he just sent me the 489 Modular Iron case he offers.
That got me thinking. Just last night I've found 2 different Dana60 truck rearends. One is a Powerlok with 3:54 gears/drum brakes. Older 5x5.5 Bolt pattern.
The other is a newer 2000 Ram 2500 axle with disc brake setup. Gearset unknown, seller says it was recently rebuilt but someone did it wrong so it needs a new gear set and claims it is a limited slip as well.
Both sellers claim they're true D60's and not the D61 or D60HD. So hopefully we'd be good to go there.
Since the work for narrowing the 8 3/4 and the Dana 60 is the same, I'm leaning towards a D60 swap. The drum brake D60 I can buy for $500 (doesn't need gears) and the Disc brake D60 I can buy for $350 (needs gears but has discs already). I'm unsure if I can reuse the calipers and mounting hardware on the Disc brake housing if I narrow and buy 5x4.5 rotors.
Any advice would be appreciated! :)
I've got a buddy that just put a Dana60 under his Dart. Started with a truck axle he got out of the wrecking yard and cut it down using 8.75 housing ends and axles from Dr Diff. I think he was $500-600 into the whole thing. But I think he was only $150 or less into the axle, not $500, and he put stock drums on it.
My bet is the disk brakes on the later one will be useless to you. Unless you want to redrill the rotors or something. I doubt you can find an off the shelf rotor that will match up but with the 5x4.5 bolt pattern, I could be wrong though. So you are probably in for a brake kit either way.
I don't know about the later axle, but I've always heard that doing gears in a Dana 60 is a bear. You have to have a case spreader to get the carrier out and back in. Never messed with one, but doesn't sound like fun.
Because of that, I would lean towards the older axle assuming the gears are already what you want. After buying new gears and getting them installed, I can't imagine the newer axle being cost effective. On the other hand, if you are set on dis brakes and are going to change the ratio anyway (not saying you are, just as a thought), the cheapest one you can get will be the best since you are tossing the brakes on both and have to buy gears and get them setup either way.
On a side note, the 8.75" case isn't hard to rebuild. Not much too it, biggest trick is getting the pinion depth right and if you are just swapping the bearings and re-using the current pinion, shouldn't be anything more than matching or re-using the shims it has on it now.
Another option you might look at is narrowing an 8.8 out of an Explorer. Not my favorite option, but the 8.8 is probably the direction I will go when I do my G3/T56 swap and upgrade to 3.55 gears.
