In a message dated 3/8/03 9:38:55 PM, offroaddesign@softhome.net writes:
J-L
Here are some comments concerning this post.
> There exist some differences between the D60 casting and the Rover one.
> Firstly, the casting from rover is stronger. It has thicker webbing around
> the pinion and more material in some critical areas. The drain plug I
> believe is on the bottom in the diff casting, and on the NA 60 it's a
> question of removing the pan.
>
Also the spline count of the pinion gear is different unless you source
a pre 1970 Dana 60, which has the same coarse spline pinion. The later Dana's
have a fine spline pinion, a 29 spline if memory serves correctly. This
different pinion spline count means that you cannot use a Rover driveshaft
because you need to use an end yoke and convert your existing driveshaft to a
weld yoke style. The outer pinion bearing is also different.
> The rover Dana 60 is not the strongest 60 axle ever built. These axles were
> available in multiple versions, from 1.24" shafts to a full 1.5" shaft in
> the Dana 60HD. Splines range from scary low counts (16?) to 30. All full
> floater rear Dana 60's were 8 bolt hubs and are usually equipped with
> massive drum brakes and and very wide. Most of these axles are centered,
> meaning not offset to the right in typical rover fashion.
>
> In comes the magic of the Dodge Tradesman/Ford Econoline. In order to clear
> the optional gargantuum fuel tank that was placed between the frame rails,
> running longitudinally, the rear diff on these babies was offset roughly 5"
> from mid seventies to early eighties, perhaps longer. After this Ford
> switched to a Ford rear axle, and Dodge supposedly (I haven't verified this
> yet) scrapped the offset idea.
>
The Salisbury Dana 60 may not be the strongest Dana 60 axle but is isn't
the weakest either. Dana's and Salisburys both have strong points and weak
points. Most Dana 60's have 2 pinion carriers as opposed to Salisbury's,
which have a a 4 pinion carrier so in this case a Salisbury is much stronger.
Lots of Dana 60's are semi-float axles especially the van applications (and
you are looking for an offset van application), Salisbury's are all full
floats. Most Dana 60's have 1.281"/30 spline axles vs a Salisbury 1.24"/24
spline but remember if all things are equal i.e. same diameter, material and
spline size , a full float axle is slightly stronger than a semi-float so the
difference between the two sizes isn't a large as it may seem. You are
correct, that 1.5 inch/35 spline Dana 60's are fairly scarce and very
desirable and usually very pricey.
If you convert a Dana 60 to use in your Rover instead of a Salisbury,
you can easily end up with an axle assemble that has stronger axles but a
weaker carrier assembly.
> In order to "roverize" a Dana diff, it must be modified. Firstly, the right
> gear ratio must be obtained (in my case, 3.54 which is easy to find, 4.7 is
> not available and a rover Sal. ring gear would have to be used) and the
> wheel width must be narrowed (to 62" hub face to hub face for a coiler, 58"
> for a series) and finally, the brakes and wheel stud pattern must be
> addressed. Let us deal with these issues in the sequence in which they are
> listed.
>
> - The ring gear is the easy part for me. I just need to find the right rear
> end with the right gears, at the right price. I hope this actually does
> happen as the price of new Spicer gears is eye opening, even at dealer
> cost.
>
I have good used 3.54 Dana gearsets if you find a rear end of the wrong
ratio.
>
> - Narrowing the housing is a problem. Dana 60's have both axle tubes
> pressed
> in and welded to the center casting. Because the rover rear end is already
> offset and the van rear end is only offset slightly, I can get away with
> narrowing the short side only ( I hope). The van width is usually 65 to
> 67".
> If I narrow one tube that gives me roughly 8 to 10" offset. More than
> factory, but still bearable. I'm either going to drill out the welds and
> pull the shaft out, cut it and press it back in, or cut the tubes down the
> middle with a chop saw and chuck eveything up in a lathe before I start
> welding (BIG lathe). I'll likely try to pull the tubes, if that doesn't
> work
> I'll try the other method.
>
Don't pull the tubes, Keith already explained why. You need a very large
special press and a very large spot welder to reattach them.
>
> - Finally, the shortened (hopefully only one) axleshaft. Machine shops can
> shorten an axleshaft easily, it's not cheap though. I hope to be able to do
> it myself. Depending on what I find as a junkyard donor, I might be stuck
> with weak axles that are not 30 spline (the 1.5" 30 spline shafts are
> rare).
> If this is the case, I'll upgrade to custom alloy shafts in the future,
> when
> going to a locker in the rear.
>
Shortening an axle shaft is cheap but resplining it is not and most
machine shop don't have hobbing equipment. Also its not a good idea to
respline an axle shaft that is already heat treated. Heat treatment is
generally measured in two ways. First is the Rockwell C rating of the
surface. This is the actual hardness. The second is the depth of penetration
of the heat treat. What this means is that the further you go into the heat
treated part, the softer the rating becomes until you get to metal that is
not actually hardened. A good heat treatment penetration for an axle is 18 to
23% penetration. So if you respline an axle shaft you are machining into the
hardest and strongest part of the shaft. A solution would be to reheat-treat
the part but this is not inexpensive either.
If you decide to later get custom axle shafts, this will also be
expensive because you will need completely custom shafts as opposed to an off
the shelf part.
Anyway, I realize you like fiddling but if budget is your primary
consideration in trying to adapt a Dana 60 into a Rover, I can almost
guarantee you that I can supply a completely remanufactured Salisbury to you
for less money than you will eventually spend on the Dana 60 conversion. We
have a supply of military salvage Sal's that we completely reman. We can also
install any traction style differential of your choice for only the cost of
the traction diff. Since we are remaning the axle assembly there isn't any
additional labor to install a different carrier.
Good luck on the conversion, If you need bearing numbers and part
numbers for end yokes and that sort of thing let me know.
Bill
GBR
_______________________________________________
LRO mailing list
LRO@land-rover.team.net
http://land-rover.team.net/mailman/listinfo/lro
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Mar 21 2003 - 14:13:12 EST