Dana 70 HD rear wheel bearing hubs

[carringb]

What year are you trying to swap hubs on? I’ve never heard of aluminum hubs on a heavy truck.

And why all this trouble to swap bolt patterns? A stock E450 has a 14.5K GVWR with 8x6.5 hubs. I swapped in an E450 axle and my rear axle weight often tops 12k on its own.

[ScrapIron]

Originally Posted by carringb

What year are you trying to swap hubs on? I’ve never heard of aluminum hubs on a heavy truck.

And why all this trouble to swap bolt patterns? A stock E450 has a 14.5K GVWR with 8x6.5 hubs. I swapped in an E450 axle and my rear axle weight often tops 12k on its own.

Its a 2004 Chinook E350 that i am converting to 4x4. I installed a 2005 Dana 60 dually front axle under it which utilizes a minimum of a 17" inch dually wheel to clear the calipers, those wheels happen to have 8x200mm lug pattern. The ford 4x4 dually pickups went to the 8x200mm lug pattern in 2005. The purpose is to avoid having to carry two spare tires with different lug patterns.

Single rear wheel vans can get away with running the 8x170mm lug pattern and swapping a sterling axle with that lug pattern or just running an adapter/spacer from 8x6.5 to 8x170mm so it matches the front lug pattern. Thats a no go on the Chinook even though i can have a set of 8x200mm adapter/spacers built, they wont make them any thinner than two inches.

Since my outer tire is already flush with the outside of the quarter panel they would be sticking out of the wheel opening the full 2" inches, then i would be looking at getting custom flares and mud flaps to prevent them from throwing rocks against the side of the fiberglass body.

Hope that helps, its a bit of a nightmare no matter how its approached. The dana 80 is just a dana70 with bigger guts. That said theoretically a guy should be able to swap hubs, rotors, caliper brackets, calipers from the dana80 onto the dana70HD. The question is... Where do your tires end up in relation to the leaf springs? The reason being.... as it sits right now in stock form there is only approximately 1/4" clearance between the back side of a 245/75-16 tire and the side of the leaf springs.

All of that leaves me with two options...
#1- spend a bunch of time and money experimenting with dana80/70 hubs and parts and possibly end up back at square one. In 2005 - 2006.5 ford used a bearing hub on the dually pickup trucks with larger bearings and races, then in 2006.5 and up they went back to smaller bearings and races that they used in the trucks 2004 and earlier. That said, there are different hubs, different bearings, different seals, different rotors, etc....

#2- fork out big bucks to have the custom hubs machined and be done with it.

[carringb]

What about just swapping the front bolt pattern?

That’s what QuadVan does. The front 4x4 axle uses an adapter anyways over the rotor.

Or… you could buy an axle setup for SRW, and carry a single adapter to run a dually spare. That’s what I do. 265’s are too wide for a 6.5” dually wheels (I run 235s on the back). I run 8” wheels up front to be able to run those wider tires, which only comes in SRW backspacing.

I’m running 17” wheels all around. My rear inners and spare are from 2012 GMC, which are also 8x6.5 but had a smaller hub. I just machined out the center hole to 4.88” to fit. The spare is mounted to the adapter on the carrier, for use up front if ever needed.

[ScrapIron]

No can do, i purchased 6 brand new take offs from a 2021 dodge ram 3500 dually. I already have the fronts on the truck. I bought them specifically for the offset and backspacing.

The first pic is with stock unit bearings and ford lockouts, the second picture is after i installed the spyntec freespin kit, the third picture shows the original 16 inch Alcoa 8x6.5 wheels on the rear versus the 17 inch 8x200 dodge wheels on the front.

[ScrapIron]

Well i scoured the internet for a pair of HUB124 and there are none to be had. I also called three seperate Oreilly auto stores and there are none to be found.

I called my local Ford guy and had him convert the part number to a Ford number and then spent hours doing a nationwide search. Ford Discontinued the part and it can no longer even be ordered. After hours of searching i found a pair clear out on the West coast at a Ford dealership. Needless to say i snapped them up and they are now mine. From Ford they retail for $496.44 each.

I snatched them up for $305 each but shipping was $123 for the pair. Fingers are crossed that they are the correct Hubs and they dont send me some other part number.

I guess if they dont work out to my likeing i will put them back in their boxes and resell them at a rediculously high amount since they are next to impossible to find.

This experiment is going to get costly i think.

[ScrapIron]

Well the Ford dealer finally updated their inventory to reflect that there are no more new
5C3Z-1109-CC left on planet earth. It was showing two available for purchase even 2 hours after i ordered and paid for them.

I hope that means they were pulled from the shelf to fill my order and that i wont be getting a phone call saying "hey man sorry but those hubs were discontinued two years ago and someone failed to update our inventory so we will be doing a refund" followed by "oh by the way we charge a 15% restocking fee on all canceled orders"

I seem to be collecting a warehouse of new parts new tracbar, spring perches, spring isolators, REID knuckles, pitman arm, lugnuts, and now all the stuff to experiment on this rear axle. Anyone wanna stop by and help me install all of this stuff when it gets here so i dont have to rent a storage unit for new parts?

[ScrapIron]

Check it out boy's... theyre on the way already. Thats some top notch customer service.

[marret]

Awesome, the last two new ones on earth.

[Rebuilder]

Cool, glad you found a pair. Are you planning on trying to install them or just use them as a pattern for your machinist?

If you're going to try to install them with all the other F series parts you'll probably need Dorman 926-272 and 273 Brake Backing Plates to fit the larger rotors. Since your van already has the parking brake in the rotor these may bolt right on. Mine, being an E450 didn't have them and the caliper bracket flange on the axle was round so I had to cut them down and add machined spacers between the flange and the new backing plates to get it to work.

Another thing you'll need to know is the axle bolts on the HUB124 are 12mm vs 7/16" on your van (at least they were on mine) so you'd need to drill the holes out and get the 12mm bolts. It's only about 1mm difference so not a big deal.

At least now you'll have the hubs so all the other stuff is easy to buy, test and return if it doesn't work.

[ScrapIron]

I decided to order them and try to make them work. In the end it will likely cost about the same as the custom hubs because i am buying everything new versus just finding a used axle, but at least i wont have to wait another 4 months to get them. It will be an experiment of sorts.

I did some parts researching and i think i have come up with part numbers for parts that will make it work using the ford van hardware versus the F series parts. But its all speculation at this point until the hubs get here.

My primary concern is in the distance from the back of the rear bearing in the hub to the front axle mounting surface. If they arent nearly the same measurement within reason my axles may not engage the spider gears in the carrier far enough. I guess if the hub ends up being to fat a guy can have a machinist shorten them in a lathe provided the axle bolt hole depth allows for it.

But i will cross that bridge when i get that far. I will do alot of measuring before i even start tearing the old hubs off so i can make benchtop comparisons. Once its done a guy can always get custom length axles made. Im just hoping to avoid that if possible.