The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Big Bolts Conversion rear axle

I've been calling truck yards in my area and found a cut-off from an 05 FL70. It has a 4.63 ratio with hydraulic disc brakes and air ride suspension. This would be really cool to put under my '52 6400 except for the cost.....$2500. That's what I paid for my truck...
Considerably more than I want to spend, but it's very tempting to get rear discs and air ride. As a cut-off, I would get all the brackets to put on my frame and he said it is held to the axle housing with u-bolts, making it somewhat adjustable for frame width. It would also come with 22.5 10 bolt hub pilot wheels for additional cost.
The 4.63 gears would be a big improvement over the 6.17's I have now. The motor sounds like it's going to fly apart at 50mph...

Anyone got a better suggestion ?? Talk me outta this...

I have a few questions...

What are your plans for the truck, running enpty all the time or carring a load and pulling a trailer sometimes?

Are you in a hilly area?

What motor do you have? If it the original 6-cylinder you may not have enought power and find you have to drive around in third gear all the time to keep the engine in it's power curve.

Do you already have disc brakes on the front axle? I don't think you should run it with disc on the rear only.

I'm sure others will chime in with their thoughts as well...

Mike B

I have been shopping air ride cut offs for a while for my big truck project and $2500 seems a little high to me. I am no expert by any means but have seen them in the $1500 range often. I bought Hendrickson cut off with just a rear housing (no guts) for $600.

If I could find an air ride cut-off with drum brakes for $1500, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

Mike my intention with the truck is to extend the bed 2-3 ft and use it as a car hauler pulling a trailer with another car. The rear only discs is a slight concern but I could mount a pressure control in-line if I needed to turn them down some. I would probably put a similar model disc brake front axle under it at some point in the future too. As for power, it has a '68 250 6 cylinder but if that won't haul the cars, I have a 283, 350 or a 454 that I could drop in for more torque...

I bought a whole 48' flatbed full of tandem cutoffs at auction for an average of $700 each. I had no use for them, but single axle cutoffs went for $300 each. That was at the West Monroe sale. I expect the Dallas sale to go for the same price.

http://berryhillauctioneers.com/auction.php?aid=561&page=inv

I have so many air ride suspensions that I haul them off for scrap. If you can find an axle with the ratio you like, you can use any air ride on it. And the frame width is standard 34".

But you will find if you put faster gears behind a 6 cylinder, you won't have enough power to pull it.

Frame width on a 52 6400 is 36"

Have you checked the disc brake sticky thread and the P30 tech tip in the big bolt section of the tips?

I have used an 05 freightliner rear and suspension on another truck, brand new housing, brakes, suspension, and used 3.73 gears, didn't pay anything near 2500 for it and it came from a regular big truck junk yard. It's a pretty big axle to go in an AD Chevy, a Rockwell meritor rated for 12 or 15 K lb.
If you plan to adapt a matching front axle it'll be difficult because they'll be so wide.

Have a look at the P30 stuff.

Grigg

2 main reasons to go newer axle is;
1) Better highway gearing. If the 6 won't pull it, I have plenty of V8 power options.
2 Get away from split rims. I want to end up with Budd style hubs and 22.5 tubeless wheels.

It doesn't need to be air ride. It would be easier to control ride quality with bags, rather than playing with leafs. The truck won't ever see it's load capacity and I would be removing leafs to get the ride I want for the weight load.

I wouldn't mind traveling for a complete assembly but more distance equals more gas cost.

So Grigg, the frame width on my '52 is wider than modern standard ?? Seems odd but Chevrolet didn't seem to follow standards back then as evidenced by their own wheel bolt pattern.

This has been my "daily driver" for the past 18 years... http://i1357.photobucket.com/albums...993210100567145TzYAVl_ph_zps09cb46ed.jpg

Sounds contradictory to me.
What do you really plan to do?

Or is your forum name accurate and we ought to just wait for you to wake up before offering more advice?

Grigg

Didn't mean to sound harsh, I thought no its funny your plans so far and your name.
Tell us more and we might have some good ideas.

Grigg

The data tag has a gross weight of 16k. The truck weighs, maybe, 6k and a 4k car on the flat bed only comes to 10k. The 6k of car and trailer it may pull only adds around 500# tongue weight, so the gross would still be less than 11k. I would get an accurate weight from a local truck scale and then remove a leaf at a time to measure ride height and hopefully get a little softer ride.
Click on the link at the bottom of my last post and it may answer some doubts about my past experience with trucks...

As for the forum name, my wife calls me that because I have a "few" vehicles I hope to someday complete...

1938 Chev coupe street rod
1952 Chev flat bed
1967 GTO
1967 Camaro ss/rs 350
1966 Chevelle SS 396
1970 Chevelle SS 396
1969 GMC K10

Link to photobucket pics of some of them. http://s1357.photobucket.com/user/S...&_suid=13640747996500346218371107401