Building a Hybrid Front Axle

by Rick Boiros

WHAT: A Hybrid front end is one with a combination of parts from two different axle assemblies. Most commonly a Ford 9" Center section with Dana 60 outer knuckles, as shown above, a "609" front end.

WHY: You get the best of both worlds. One Ton strength on a commonly available ½ ton Axle Housing

ADVANTAGES (Over a complete Dana 60 Front axle):

• Availability. Dana 60 Front axles are getting scarce, and are very expensive new.
• Ease of staying with the leaf springs under axles. A Dana 60 basically NEEDS to be spring over in the front.
• Ground clearance. The 9" hangs 5-7/8" below the axle centerline at its lowest point. The Dana 60 is 6-1/4". The custom "High clearance" Currie housing pictured above is trimmed to 5-9/16". A Dana 44 is 5-3/8".
• Weight. The Ford 9" is lighter than a Dana 60.
• Drop out center section. The 9" is very easy to set up gears and change the third member out.
• Availability of a High Pinion third member. This axle utilizes a "high pinion" arrangement where the drive shaft enters far above the axle centerline. Up out of harms way. A Dana 60 was available with a High Pinion in Ford F350's. Expensive hard to find, and the differential is on the wrong side for a Jeep CJ.
• Cost. 9" housings and components (gears, lockers etc) are priced significantly lower than Dana 60 (and even Dana 44) parts.

THE SPECS:

• New Currie "9 Plus" hot rod housing with High Clearance option.
• Currie High Pinion Nodular Iron 3rd member.
• Ford 8.8 Reverse Cut Ring and Pinion, 4.56 Ratio.
• 35 Spline Detroit Locker Differential.
• 35 Spline GM Dana 60 inner axle shafts.
• Spicer 332-X Non-Greaseable 1 Ton Axle U-joints
• Ford 30 Spline Dana 60 Outer axle ends.
• Ford 1 Ton King pin style Steering knuckles
• Ford 1 Ton Inner Hubs machined to 5 Lug.
• Ford F150 Rotors, Fabricated Caliper Brackets, GM 2 Bolt Calipers.
• Ford Locking Hubs.
• Avalanche Engineering Steering Arm (draglink attaches to this on top of right side Steering knuckle).
• 1.50 x 3/8" Wall DOM Tie Rod.
• 1 Ton Tie Rod ends

HOW: I ordered the axle housing, tubed, from Currie, along with the assembled 3rd member. I had all the steering parts left over from the Reverse Cut Ford Dana 60 Front that became the rear axle for my CJ.

I consulted with a local machinist to weld the ends on the Currie Housing and perform the 5 on 5.5" Bolt pattern conversion and fabricate caliper brackets. It sounds simple, but a lot of figuring, machining and fabricating went into the assembly. Currie does not have the tooling to fabricate a housing with older king pin style outer knuckles.

Moser Engineering narrowed my (junkyard) Dana 60 inner shafts.

WHERE CAN I GET ONE? No, I won't be building more and selling them. But I do have some more Dana 60 Front parts laying around!

Currie Enterprises (714-528-6957) will sell you a complete axle built with all new components. They use Ball joint style F450 steering parts and, believe it or not, an even bigger axle U-joint! The Bad News is…. Expect to pay around $5000 for one of these!!! Currie can also fit your 9" or Dana 44 with the 1 ton Hyrbrid parts.

Sunray Engineering in Ft. Worth, TX also builds and sells these. They use more used parts, will do a king pin style housing like mine, and use your parts. Tom Elliston is the contact.

HOW MUCH? I spent between $2000 and $2500. A bargain compared to buying one outright. I had some used parts to put into it and got excellent prices on machine work.

GOT MORE PICS? More pics showing most steps of assembly available at link below: http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=601558&a=9410876&f=0

IMPRESSIONS: I am very happy with the outcome of this project. The size of the components used and strength increase is phenomenal over the Dana 30/44 and even a normal 31 spline Ford 9". I don't expect to break any parts on this axle, but will carry spare outer axle ends (they are "only" 30 spline) and a spare locking hub, though they are very strong all steel internal style. The best parts of the swap is NO real loss in ground clearance and the driveshaft is above the frame rails now!

DIFFICULTY: A large amount of planning, engineering, fabrication and precision machine work went into this axle. It would take a well equipped machinist to duplicate this axle, or buy one commercially available and install yourself.

NEXT STEPS: I will detail some HD Steering upgrades next month. Not pictured is the draglink I am waiting for one to match the tie rod size and strength. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________