The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Big Bolts 90s chevy 3500hd rear

Will my 10 lug wheels from 47 coe fit the 90s to 2000 3500hd rear I'm spent a ton of time looking for an older rear with that pattern most junk yards have scapped the older stuff the main reason I want to use my rims and tires is because every thing is new and painted

They will fit if/after you bore the center of the wheels from 4.75" out to 5.25".

The bolt pattern is same 10 lug on 7.25" circle. Stud size may be 1/2" for some older models with this pattern and is 5/8" on the late model.

Your wheels can be made to work but won't fit as they are.
http://www.stovebolt.com/techtips/wheels/

Is there an easy way to bore out the center hole in the wheel or does it need to go to a machine shop also does anyone know when the 5/8 studs started on the 3500hd rears

the center hold on your wheels is what centers them on the axle. If it is not centered, or not round, you will fight wheel hop and maybe cause some other stresses on components. I am sure there are people that have done it with a die grinder or something, but I would find a shop to bore them out on a mill.

Yes, the center bore is important, needs to be done on a lathe or mill and setup true to start with.

3500HD will have 5/8" studs.
Anything with this bolt pattern after 1956 will have 5/8" studs I'm sure. My memory is a little foggy on the earlier years but I am sure at some point early on, perhaps 30's or 40's they had 1/2" studs with this bolt pattern, and interestingly enough early on also an even smaller center bore in the wheel.

Now is your opportunity to look for the correct tire to replace your 20's with 22.5's, wheels are the problem. 22.5 wheels started coming out with the advent of tubeless tires, so look for late 50's trucks with these wheels, they will fit w/o having to bore them out. Look on farm trucks, 1.5 or 2 ton.

Ed

The 22.5" 10-lug wheels with 5.25" center hole were only used on the 4000 Series 1-1/2 ton trucks starting in 1956. The 2-ton trucks were six lug...

Mike B

And ending in 1959, when they swapped to 6 lug Budd same as the 2 ton.

It maybe tuff finding one of these rear ends that is useable that was the bigest problem the these 3500 with 10 hole wheels had. I work on trucks and go to alot truck salvage yards i started seeing alot of these 3500s and looked into geting one to fix up but they almost all had bad rearends. Ford also had a truck like this the F450 and they didnt have a great rear end ether.

I've found several with low miles and in great shape.
The Dana 70hd and Dana 80 with 10 lug on 7.25" circle were also used in RV's and step vans. Seems many RV's don't accumulate miles like a 3500hd truck might.

I used a Dana 80 in mine from an HD3500 Wrecker with disc brakes. The alignment on the springs was only off by 1/8" so it work out real well. 4.63 gears rather than the original 6.17s. I pulled an axle out of a 1985 P30 stepvan with low miles and it's a Rockwell with disc brakes and 5.29 gears. Was used as a service truck on our terminal to work on reefer units and was onsite all the time and never hit the street. It has the 10 lug 7.25 circle as well. It's just sitting at my place doing nothing. I couldn't see a good axle going to the scrapper though.

Are the 10 lug axles in motor homes and step vans like the 8lug ones were? I parted out a step van thinking i would use its rear end in a pickup of the same year but it was alot wider.I would like to build a older truck but i dont like the way they look with there tires sticking way out.

In my experience the GM step van axles are perfect for AD trucks either 8 or 10 lug they're quite narrow, pretty much same as the stock AD axles within an inch or less.

Axle from a late model GM dual wheel pickup truck, with a pickup bed, is quite wide.

Likewise, I slid a 3500 Dana 80HD dually under my '46 ton-and-a-half. Minor adjustment to the width on the spring perches. Lots of radial tire and gear options but slightly smaller wheels (19.5 vs 20") with disk brakes to boot.

Y'all can still run 20" wheels from about 56-59 (and later?) trucks as well as 22.5" wheels if you can find them, same year range.
Older wheels can have the center bored out to fit 5.25" hub.

Just thinking out loud...

I would love to run a Dana 80 in my 2-Ton 1953 GMC-350. My concern from research is the Dana 80 is only rated to 11,000 lbs load. The original Eaton 1350 2-Speed is supposed to be rated to 13,500 lbs load. I even imagined welding some kind of housing truss like you see some of the 4X4 guys do to their axle housings. Would it make it strong enough then? The hub bearing packs on the ends would still be the same. The tubes on the Dana 80 are 4.5" in diameter and supposed to be 1/2" wall. In my mind that's pretty beefy.

The Dana S110 you find in the F450/F550 and the C4500/C5500 is supposed to be rated to 14,500 lbs, and would probably be a better candidate if it didn't open up the whole "Wheels" problem.

Then I had the crazy idea of seeing if the third member of the S110 could somehow be adapted to the Eaton 1350 housing. The ring gear diameter of the Eaton and Dana S110 are close.

Sorry for the thread jack...

Look up the GVR for a few trucks with the Dana 80, how different is that from your truck?

I used a Dana 70HD which is pretty much a Dana 80 as far as tubes, spindles, bearings and hubs go but mostly Dana 70 innards. Trucks with it are rated not much less than my 6400 model at 16,000lb. I don't intend to continually overload it like the old farm truck probably was, so i am OK with that slightly reduced capacity.

If you know the limits of your new axle would you also be OK with it?

As far as beefing up the housing of an axle I wouldn't bother, it's the size of the internal components and bearings that will be over taxed first, not a bent housing in my estimation.

Some people reuse the spindles, hubs, and brakes from their old truck axle and weld in an entire new center housing with modern innards. I don't really like this because you've then gone to a lot of work to keep old more or less obsolete brakes instead of easily upgrading and saving a lot of fabrication work by just swapping a whole new axle. Sometimes it might make sense if the truck has distinctive Dayton wheel hubs and that's the best way to keep them, but otherwise a whole axle swap is the thing to do.

Also consider Rockwell Meritor axles. I swapped a small one rated I think 15,000 lb from a 2005 Freightliner into a F350, that was a nice axle and nice swap. Pictures in my album below.

I've also done a 6 lug Budd Dana 80 into an AD GMC, pictures in the album too.

The 6 lug Budd axles can be found ew enough to have modern (fast) gear ratios and brakes, yet the bolt pattern has been around from the 50's if not earlier, so it looks pretty appropriate on old trucks even if that model might not have used it factory. Also 22.5" wheels are available and pretty cheap used, a big plus. Again check out those 53 GMC pictures in my album.

Grigg

Thanks much Grigg!

I spent some time in your image albums. I love your work! I was also intrigued by your speedometer update.

I crawled under a big dodge truck across the street that has a Dana 80 under it, and it turns out the tubes are not 4.5" in diameter like I said in my post above (information on the internet is not always correct), but they are 4.00" in diameter. The Eaton 1350 has 4.25" diameter tubes. So I'm thinking you are right about the Dana 80 being strong enough. I too will never overload this thing.

According to Wikipedia, the C3500 HD with the Dana 80 rear axle is rated to 15,000 GVW (gross vehicle weight). That's only a 1,000 lbs less than the 2-Ton GMC 350 I have here rated at 16,000 GVW. What's great about the Dana 80 is the availability of parts!

The 6 lug 22.5" wheels seem to be available new as well. Here is link to a 22.5" dia x 6.75" wide, 6 lug on 8.75" bolt circle with a 6.50" center hole. The look of the wheel is close to the original. I've never liked the look of the ones you see that have the giant diameter flat center. The company is Wheels Now.

http://www.wheelsnowinc.com/catalog/viewItem.php?id=219

Hope this helps the original poster of this message.

David