Has anybody done this or heard of it bieng done. A guy at work today said he talked to a guy with an OBS and he welded up the TTB to make it a solid axle. Is this doable or is the diesel to much weight and it would just bust the welds loose over a period of time? INPUT PLEASE!!
TTB Modification
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hit up Jonathan at Swamps, he did this years ago to "The Swamp Donkey" before it went 2.5tons.
Justin
Justin
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I did it, about 6 hours start to finish was about what it took back before I found a decent price on a D60.
It worked perfectly fine and allowed me to put F350 springs on with my RSK for a better ride. Changing the springs is pretty much mandatory if you weld it up unless you like to bleed from the kidneys.
Actually I still have mine sitting out back that I need to haul off.
All it cost me was about $50 for steel and some grub and beer for my brother running the stick welder.
It worked perfectly fine and allowed me to put F350 springs on with my RSK for a better ride. Changing the springs is pretty much mandatory if you weld it up unless you like to bleed from the kidneys.
Actually I still have mine sitting out back that I need to haul off.
All it cost me was about $50 for steel and some grub and beer for my brother running the stick welder.
I followed swamps idea and welded up my 1995 ttb. If you are good with a welder it is fairly easy. Leave your leaf springs attached to keep the correct position and weld away. The positives I was able to do a reverse shackle design. Made the truck drive a lot smoother and on top of that the bad tire wear issues were gone. It was easier to do a lift on the truck. Not for everbody but it was a learning project. I'll post some pictures of swamps original post. Not sure you can look it up any more. I think these were created back in 2001.
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There's at least two of these done on thedieselstop.com and at least one on pirate4x4.com. Slightly different tactics on all of them. They all say it rides fine and gets rid of the TTB issues.
I can't find my picture of the welded front end but here are some more old stuff I found. To update the steering I have all of the autozone part numbers needed. Maybe later I'll snap a few pictures of the axle. I have beat the crap out of it at Moab doing 4 1/2 star trails with my powerstroke. The axle is solid. I think its in some ways stronger than a stock solid axle. Again not for everybody. For someone that likes fabricating there own stuff its fun to do.
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Could you do this and keep it at stock height? The most I would want to go would be 2".
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To each his own, kind of like running stage 1's with no tune. I am sure there is lots of guys with a TTB that would be happy to trade for your D60 since it's a waste of time.
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The other interesting one I've seen is a D61/70 rearend with one tube cut off short, and the D50 ends pressed on and welded. Then you use D60 shafts inside. The 61/70 uses a 3.5 in dia tube, which is about what you need for the inside of the D50 box tubing. That one looked a lot beefier, with the only significant outlay being the axle shafts from the 60. I may look at doing that one with mine. That was on either fullsizebronco.com or pirate.
Doing a reverse shackle setup would probably put you at around 2" of lift would be my guess. You can put the front leaf spring bolt at stock height. The rear shackle drops down a little more and thats where you will get your lift. Another thing to think about is the angle on the drive shaft from the lowering of the rear of the leaf spring which may need angle correction.
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If you could find a link to a thread, I'd be intrested in reading it.
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