Sub'd. Looks interesting and neat to see you not just buying one of the kits.

 

Very interested also..........good luck :thumbsup:

 

Complete ford axle in shop:

Teardown coming shortly.

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photo swap edit 7-8-17

 

Teardown coming shortly.

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Probably the original wheel bearings in that warhorse.
Thank-you Saintly and Thank-you 1070 for investigating this potential swap.

It does look promising.

 

Looks promising

 

Are you going to cut the inner "c" off and graft it to the aam housing making a kingpin aam? Or are you just going to swap parts from the spindle out?

Looks interesting. I'll be watching to see what happens.

 

Are you going to cut the inner "c" off and graft it to the aam housing making a kingpin aam? Or are you just going to swap parts from the spindle out?

Just spindles outward.

I got a screamin deal on the axle, so I jumped at it. It was way cheaper than buying used spindles, hubs, stubs, lockouts, bearings, and all hardware.

I'll be looking to sell the housing with gears now that I've stripped everything I need off it. Perhaps I'll recoup most of the money I spent on it.

Anyhow. I got her stripped down today. Everything looks pristine! Likely the only thing I'll need to buy is inner grease seals and two u-joints.

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If i remember a thread on pirate the ball joints wont match up. Everything else though....... :confused013:

 

What's the plan for the ABS sensor??? Wouldn't think something that old has it????

 

The "plan" for the abs sensor is:
[a] re-drill spindles to dodge 4 bolt mounting pattern
snake the abs sensor wire through one of the now un-used ford spindle mounting holes(after opening it up a bit)
[c] attach it via a bracket retained by one of the mounting bolts
[d] have it read from a 55 tooth rotor mounted exciter wheel


Of course plans have been known to change, and suggestions are always welcome!

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Thank-you Saintly and Thank-you 1070 for investigating this potential swap.

Oh it's not a potential swap, it's already been done! 1070's has been rolling on on this mod for some time.

This is his setup on his 2005 SRW:

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So I am lost a little. Are the axle U-joints the same on both axles? Are you using the Ford rotors or do the Dodge ones fit or do you need to change the lug pattern as well? Me and a buddy at work are super interested in this. Please keep this thread going and well documented.

 

1. The u-joints from the ford/dana axle are different from the dodge. I have a plan for that, but you'll have to stay tuned.

2. The lug pattern is identical.

3. The plan is to use the dodge rotor, but spacing needs will dictate that as I go.


In the photo above of 1070's setup he is using the dodge rotor but he had to make a spacer to go between the rotor and the hub in order to center the rotor in his caliper. He made the spacer out of the old ford rotor by simply cutting out the center.

Now his is a SRW and mine is a dually, so my setup may vary. I'll know once I bolt it all up... again you'll have to stay tuned!

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I think it would be easier to swap the inner 'c' and everything outboard onto the aam housing. You would need the C's opened up for the larger tube diameter on the aam but it's easily doable. This would eliminate the crappy ball joint design on the AAM axles as well.

Look up WFO, they make an abs tone ring that can be pressed on the ford hubs with a little machine work.

As for the shafts. You could probably use a set of pre-2010 inner shafts with better luck as only a small shim is needed to connect the aam inner shaft with the ford outter stub.

1555 x 1480 u joint might be hard to find in a conversion style joint...

Either way you go it'll be interesting to see the outcome.

 

https://www.wfoconcepts.com

Thanks for that tip WTFab! Awesome site with great photos, gives me good ideas.

 

Saintly I'm going to be glued to this thread for awhile. I would really like to have wheel bearings that are serviceable and some beautiful locking hubs on my truck. Any MPG increase would be great too!

 

You're not going to gain much in fuel mileage if any at all... You would gain more by just driving very conservatively.

I do love the serviceability of the spyntec kit on my megacab and how it cuts down on wear and tear more than anything else. That's the main reason for the swap in my opinion.

Another good reason to swap the kingpins would be to allow for better steering angles by using a high steer kit to raise the drag link... Unless you can find a set of 2013 up aam knuckles to use to accomplish the same thing.

 

This weekend I did some research on the abs situation.

I've been looking at this photo from WFO Concepts page:

This is pretty much what I had envisioned doing in my minds eye. However, the tone ring mounting on the backside of the hub has yet to be sorted.

One thing is for sure, the stock tone rings from a unit bearing hub are too small in diameter. Here's a pic I took of the Dodge(55 tooth) and the Ford(60 tooth) trigger wheels side by side with a bottle of ice tea for scale:

I need a larger diameter 55 tooth reluctor / tone ring, and although WFO has them on their site, at $100 each I'm not a player.

I did however discover that Dorman products makes trigger wheels for just about all cars. Furthermore the tone ring for a ford explorer(part # 917-530) has 54 teeth and just under 4" ID
Dorman Products - 917-530

This might be perfect as it is only one tooth off and costs only $14 bucks on ebay. ABS Ring Rear Right Front Left Dorman 917 530 | eBay

What's the concensus?
Will 1 tooth less make a difference or no?

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I don't know what the ABS threshold is, but 1 tooth is ~2% signal mismatch.

I suspect welding fab is not an issue for you. Consider buying an extra ring from Dorman, cutting a tooth, and welding a tooth to each of the other rings. Get out your small files, and shape to suit. Would change ID from 3.96 to 4.03".

$60 + fab time, versus $200...

 

Tomorrow when I'm back at work, I'll look up the ABS DTC parameters for wheel signal codes on alldata & Mitchell.

If 2% is within the allowable threshold I may just be good-to-go.

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Had another thought, hesitate to post it, but here goes:

I think the Dakota Digital SGI-5E could do it, 55/54=1.0185 [round to 1.02, error would be ~0.1%], but...Dakota Digital warns against it [legal department?].
"The calibration value can be set from 0.250 – 4.00. Values
below 1.00 will display as three digits with no decimal point. (0.250 = 250)"
Universal Speedometer Signal Interface
"If your vehicle is equipped with an anti-lock braking system (ABS), it is advised to ensure the signal reaching the ABS controller is not altered to eliminate any potential problems affecting control algorithms within the system. Some vehicles also utilize the output shaft speed to calculate transmission slip and lock-up. When a signal feeding the PCM is altered, this may cause the PCM to detect a constant slip. Consulting a service manual may be of assistance in determining the signal routing within the vehicle if the SGI-5 is decided to be used in a situation such as this."

EDIT: Well, forgot you already have the Ford 60t tone ring, and IF you feel like trying the Dakota Digital SGI-5E:
55/60 = .917 [after rounding] so calibration value = 917

 

Ok, I think I found the perfect ABS tone ring. 2001 Chevy/GMC 2500 2WD inside the front rotor.

Its 55 tooth and I think I can attach it to the inside of my hub. I'll document that soon. However, let me get you all up to speed on Monday & todays progress.

I test fit the Ford/Dana dually hubs onto one of my Dodge wheels. Lug pattern is a perfect fit, but the cast in centering ring on the ford hub was approx ten thousanths too big. My wheels would not sit flush on the hub.

Too big for my lathe chuck to grab, I decided to try to mill the ring using a rotary table.

First I had to true it up, got it true to within 0.003"

Then I got to cutting:

Completed:

Wheel fits perfectly now:

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When I saw the mill I thought:
"what, no radius bit!!!"

Not really, that mill looks very handy. I have tool envy, but not too badly, it only took me a couple minutes to breathe again.

How in the world did you think of the GM tone ring? What are you searching? I can't even find which catalog Dorman puts their TR's in...

If the GM tone ring fits you don't need the ABS threshold, but if you came across it I'm curious. I looked, but didn't find it, no surprise as I'm a hobby guy. I'm guessing the Stability Control system has affected the threshold values.

Anyway, nice work, and thanks for letting us watch!

 

How in the world did you think of the GM tone ring? What are you searching?

Monday, I go to work and the first job I get in my bay is a 2001 GMC 2500 two wheel drive. It's there for front brakes. I pull the calipers & rotors, and what's staring me right in the face? A frickin 55 tooth reluctor wheel!

The new rotors came with new trigger wheels already pressed on, so you know I helped myself to the old ones before throwing the rotors into the scrap bin.

What are the chances right?
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That's funny, but..."Chance Favors the Prepared Mind". In my experience you mostly make your own luck.

If I'm not very careful, I'll stare at something like the tone ring solution and not recognize it .

 

So........

Here's what the backside of my hubs look like. There is a machined pocket for the grease seal on the backside. It is much deeper than the seal is wide.

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I pressed the seal in all the way till it bottomed in its pocket. 3/16" of room remains on top of the seal. This is where I plan to mount the chevy tone rings:

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The stock chevy tone ring just lying on the hub.

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I cut a step into the two tone rings that I scored for free:

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Pressed into the hub above the seal. It fits damn tight!

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Very nice work Saintly!

I am a machinist by trade and like everything I see!

I do have tool envy because I don't have a mill and lathe at home. I have to go over to my buddies shop. They don't let us use the equipment at work.

 

Is there enough room between the back of the hub and the spindle for the tone ring once the hub is seated on the spindle? I'd think it gets pretty tight.

 

Yeah there's about 0.100" between the reluctor and the spindle.
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Update.

After stripping everything I needed off of the dana axle, I put it on my local craigslist. Sold for nearly what I paid for it!

Had enough money from that to buy a tub of grease, grease seals, new inner axles, and new u-joints.

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Here's the major ingredients for my axles, The 2010 & up AAM axles have larger U-joints and a bigger outer splined stub shaft, so I had to get a set of the 2003-2009 inner shafts. Got em brand new for $125 per side with free shipping from finditparts.com
These will be mated to the Dana outer stubs.

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The way I was told to do it was to order genuine spicer U-joints, one for a 2002 Dana axle dodge, and one for a 2003 AAM axle dodge.

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The 2002 & 2003 U-joints have the identical same cross shaft, but the caps have the clip grooves in different locations. Using a mix of 2 and 2 caps to crosses, you essentially make a conversion joint that allows the AAM to mate up to the Dana.

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And damned if it didn't work out exactly as it ought to:

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10 char min.

 

Cool Keep us informed

 

Lotta progress. :thumbsup:

So, "offset the spindle inward onto the knuckle by 1/2".

I think you said you wanted to keep the Dodge knuckles.
I guess that means you have to do some machine work on the spindle mounting flange. Looks like you will have to machine that flange to the I.D. of the 4-bolt knuckle recess, and weld on a 4-bolt sub-flange "mounting ring" on the hub side of the spindle flange. The "mounting ring" I.D. will have to clear the hub/tone ring, and have provision for the wheel speed sensor.

Have I got that right, or is there another plan?

 

Damn dude! Thats a bit creepy, how's bout you stay outta my head.

Yes, an adapter ring 5" ID X 7.25" OD is in the process of being made.

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