Expensive lessons learned from my 4x4 build

[higgys72]

I’m building my 72 into a crawler/driver and I’m finding some very expensive mistakes I’ve made. I’m starting this thread to help people doing similar builds and will be on going as I’m sure there will be plenty more before this build is done.

1. Dana 60!!! I found a smoking deal on a Dana 60/14bolt combo both for $400 it’s almost too cheap to not buy.

Problem: It’s a dually front axle and I kinda want 4 wheel disc brakes. So I bought srw hubs $500 new studs and lug nuts $120 new rotors $180. Since I basically got the rear axle for free since the guy wanted both gone or nothing my $400 Dana 60 is now a $1200 axle and I still haven’t touched gears or lockers.

Lesson: If a deal comes along look at the full expensive to set up how you would like. I’ve seen srw dana 60 with a locker and correct gearing for under $2000. By the time I set my budget dana 60 up to these specs I’ll we’ll over $2000.

2 Shipping cost and parts sourcing. I went with off road designs 4 link kit. This is a good quality kit that eliminates a lot of guess work out of a complete suspension redesign.

Problem: This kit contains a lot of large heavy tubing that requires freight shipping. All together I’ve spent about $700 on shipping plus slightly inflated prices for tubing. They also use rock jock Johnny joints for the link ends. Again this is a great product better streetability than heims and better angles achieved. Problem is ORD price is about $20 a joint more than through rock jock. That’s another $80 savings for literally the same product.

Lesson: shopping locally for the simple straight tubing pieces would have saved enough for a tire or wheel. Shopping directly with parts suppliers for this kit would have saved at least another $80.

3. Shock choice. Again not complaining about part quality. Im not sure it gets much better than king shocks.

Problem: Lots of things go into making a suspension work properly like bump stops and limiting straps kings are cheaper than comparable ORI struts. Once you include bumps and straps the prices are about equal.

Lesson: a little more research into ORI air struts would have changed my mind on my shock selection. It’s not so much a price saving decision but an ease of set up and tuning. Plus if I change stuff later and need to change spring rate or calving then the price of kings will put weigh the ORI pretty quickly.

[kwmech]

Finding a 60/14 bolt combo for 400 was a smoking deal. Beit dually or not. 14 bolts here are that or more by itself. So in my eyes you essentially got the 60 fro free. I haven't been able to find a front 60 for any kind of price for the past 2 years. Last one I found went into the front of my Suburban

[higgys72]

Originally Posted by kwmech

Finding a 60/14 bolt combo for 400 was a smoking deal. Beit dually or not. 14 bolts here are that or more by itself. So in my eyes you essentially got the 60 fro free. I haven't been able to find a front 60 for any kind of price for the past 2 years. Last one I found went into the front of my Suburban

We can still get 14bolts in our junk yards for $200 pretty consistently gm 60s are hard to come by but still pop up on market place every couple of months. For 1200 I can find the 60 pretty consistently within 3 hours of me.

[higgys72]

Originally Posted by kwmech

Finding a 60/14 bolt combo for 400 was a smoking deal. Beit dually or not. 14 bolts here are that or more by itself. So in my eyes you essentially got the 60 fro free. I haven't been able to find a front 60 for any kind of price for the past 2 years. Last one I found went into the front of my Suburban

I guess it’s not that I wasted money just that by the time it’s all said and done I could have been less frugal on my initial purchase and come out the same $$ out of pocket

[kwmech]

Originally Posted by higgys72

.............. For 1200 I can find the 60 pretty consistently within 3 hours of me.

That's pretty cool. finding one in Northern Calif or Nevada is very very rare

[Zoomad75]

Nothing about the hobby is cheap to deal with. I'm not in any hurry to stuff a D60 under my truck for all the reasons you mentioned. I'm not full-blown rock crawling with mine and not running any tire bigger than a 35 I'll invest in some chrome-moly axle shafts for it. By the time I rebuild a D60 I'll have $2000 in parts, not including the housing.

I'm a big fan of ORD. I've met Stephen Watson and his team at Blazer Bash and can say they are top-notch folks. I'd love to go with the front four-link kit but it's a bit overkill for my needs. I'll probably go for their custom leaf springs though. I've got a slight advantage when I order mine when it comes to shipping. I'll probably go pick them up since I live in Colorado and the cost of shipping leaf springs can buy a lot of gas for the road trip.

[57taskforce]

Dana 60’s are getting hard to find these days. I’ve seen some go for more than 2K around here still needing rebuilt. I’ve got a of them stashed away for future use. They are all dually axles from mid-late 80s cab and chassis trucks I’ve parted out. I’ve got the 14 bolts and 465/205 and 400/205’s to go with them. It blew my mind to see how much those compete round 205 combos are going for these days along with the 60’s.

I converted one of them to srw for my ‘72. I’ve got about 600-700 in used srw hubs, bearings, seals, complete Dana/spicer king pin kit. The brakes were pretty new on that particular axle so I won’t have to do much to them. I didn’t really need a 60 but since I’ve got a couple I figured why not. I went ahead and converted the 14 bolt from the same truck to srw and the late model disk setup as well. It’s definitely not a cheap hobby especially these days.

OP your truck sounds like a killer build. Going to be a real animal when done no doubt.

[mongocanfly]

I'm the same way...every time I (think) I got a good deal on something, it always costs me more in the end

[SunSoaked]

I guess this is where the saying 'buy once-cry once" comes from?

I work on a military installation. We have a LOT of old military vehicles strewn about the place, including dozens of non-running CUCV's. Every now and then we are tasked with cleaning up the place and taking it to the DRMO yard. The part that sucks about that is everything that goes in the yard becomes property of the recycling contractor and it is against the law for them to resale anything-it must go in the crusher.

Recently, there was a pile of CUCV (blazers & K30's) frames that took the one way trip. It almost brought tears to my eyes watching then Dana 60's and 14 bolts slip into the black hole.

[sweetk30]

i have seen and repaired a lot of half ton and 3/4 ton fronts in my time . . . my 1st ever dana 60 is now under its 4th truck since i got it in 2002 ish .

i work / daily drive / tow rig / off road play toy up to 38" tires / plow snow 8ft and 9ft wide fisher plow tipping the scale at almost 950lbs for the 9ft / its done a lot and all on stock shafts / gears / just a full refreash when i got it with seals and grease and oil .

i have tried to blow it up in 4low doing doughnuts on blacktop with the 9ft plow hanging off the front . . . mud with them 38" swampers . . . this axle just keeps going and dont ask me for much in return .

now i went threw 2 3/4 ton 44 fronts in 6 months before i got the 60 and then it was only 36" tires . . . as said buy 1 time . build it with good parts . and run it .