I’d said more than once that I would rock the 44 until it gave me too many problems. After replacing ball joints, and killing the high steer, I’d finally had enough. So in came the ‘78 Dana 60:

As with most SAS’s, the K member needed to be trimmed up some to make room for the high steer linkage as well as some clearance for the pumpkin under full compression. Since I’m running full width axles, I don’t think I’ll have to get too crazy with the trimming. While I had the axle out of the way, I figured I’d take a whack at it to get started on it as it was easily accessible. I won’t know…

The front shackles wound up being a bit overkill. I used 1.5 x ½” thick material to make them. The holes are at 5” center to center, and I milled out 1/8” per side to get the correct offset (Waggy bushing measures 2.75” and the YJ bushing measures right at 3”). There was some .120” 1 ¼” Tube laying around that I made the middle spacer out of. Parts: Welded up: With the shackles done, I slapped a piece of…

Well I passed two milestones tonight, the leaf mounts are fully burned on. And I somehow managed to lay some decent beads upside down Locating the mounts was a bit of a pain since I’d moved (or removed) just about every item that I could use as a good reference point on the frame. So it took a few tries to get it right. So if anyone is looking for numbers in the future, here’s what I wound up with……

After doing some quick plating of the front crumple zone (I’ll do a separate post on that when I get done plating, as well as final mounting locations for the front leaf mounts) I did a few test fits of the 44. What can I say, I’m kind excited at this point so I’m jumping ahead a bit Since I didn’t really have any reference points to measure off of to being with (cab is loose from the body, and…