Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

Hi, New here to the 4x4 section. I'm planning on building my 54 GMC into a 4wd. I have axles from a 72 GMC K2500. Dana HD 44 front and Dana 60 rear. These will need to be shortened from approx. 70" WMS-WMS to I think about 60".

What I'm hoping for is to wind up with an axle length that is not a custom length but an off the shelf part. Has anyone here done this or can give me some advice or tips about this? What might some options be?

And what about shortening the rear by cutting off the hub, boring it out to fit the axle shaft and welding it. Is this a bad idea? Thanks, Rick

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

No 60 rear is that narrow factory. Front 44 can use waggy or EB...why so narrow?

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

He is right the jeep wagoneer dana 44 front is 60 and came in both side drops depending the years.And only big rear end close to that width i know of is a cab and chassis 14 bolt which is 63

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

Cab n chassis Dana 60 is bout the same width too, but dunno why wants it that narrow. Those trucks didn't use axles that narrow.

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

Thanks for the replies everybody. Not looking for axles. I already have them. Just need to shorten them. The 47-55.1 trucks had about 60" WMS-WMS front and rear. Way narrower than 55.2 up. And I don't want the tires outside of the fenders. What I'm going for is sort of a Napco clone. I may wind up getting custom length axle shafts from Moser or Dutchman. Thanks, Rick

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

Back then GM was using HO52s, so why not original rear from same truck?

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

Only because the Eaton has 4.57's and the Dane 44 front I have is 4.10's.

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

For the price of one set of custom made axles you could buy and swap in different axles that are the width you need.And if you sell the ones you have that will give you money to re gear both axles.

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

Agreed. If you aren't going to wheel it hard, the Wagoneer axles would be ideal. Get a passenger drop and 6 lug bolt pattern you can still run GM 1/2 ton wheels. And with the right components, brakes.

But if you have to narrow it, Pirate4x4.com has lots of guys who have changed the width of the fronts by removing the c's on the front, cutting to width and re-welding. Rear is easy in comparison.

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

Yes, custom fronts are about 300 a pair for a 44. That's why I was hoping to find shorter stock axle shafts out of another narrower truck like the Waggy. Either that or cut and respline the shafts I have. Haven't taken them apart yet so I don't know if they're necked down outboard of the spline or not. If they are the obviously that's not an option.

As for the rears, Back in the day lots of rodder guys put narrowed full floater rears in cars. They cut off the hub flange, bored it to the shaft dia., and rewelded them. Cutting off whatever excess. I'm wondering if anyone does this anymore or does it weaken the shaft too much?

Dutchman and others will respline your existing shafts too and it's not nearly as expensive as customs
Thanks, Rick

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

Thanks Mike,
I don't mind doing the work of shortening the tubes. Like you said, shorten the front at the "C"s.
The rear tubes are usually shortened at the pig. I may even respline the shafts myself to save some cash. That is if they are resplinable. (is that a real word?)

FWIW, I have a 350 with an SM465 married to a NP205 that I'll be using. It's pass side drop of course since it's from a K2500. Rick

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

As already mentioned the front will be stupid easy. Not sure when they went to non tapered inners, but aftermarket waggy axles easy to get. Narrowing the rear won't be too hard, and getting shafts for that won't be that crazy either, since narrowing axles is pretty common these days.

I never messed with your body style truck, didn't realize they were that narrow.

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

HO52s also came in 4.10. Easy swap.

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

Out of what truck? Or do you mean newly manufactured gears?, Rick

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

There are no newly manufactured HO52 gears. There used to be some 3.90's but they have not produced another run, and that was at least 10 years ago.

Usually when a rear axle is narrowed, the tube is cut somewhere in the middle and sectioned and just welded back together. I have a housing jig made by Strange with multiple housing end pucks to re-align, and most racecar shops can handle that for flanged axles but not full floaters. I re-read your first post and am not sure about what you were talking about on the re-boring to fit the axle?

If the rear is pretty straight, the tube itself can be used to align the ends. Sleeve it with a slight interference fit tube then weld penetrating into the sleeve.

You can buy cut to length full floater axles, just not sure if you can get them splined far enough in for a 60" WMS.

It looks like the Jeep J20 (or older J4000) full floaters were 65" WMS and is another option that is at least a little narrower.

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

My K20 with an D44/HO52 has 4.10's, verified it last summer.

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

I'm using a 1955 h052 in my jeep at 63". Sounds like you could just use that axle with some heavy backspace wheels.

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

The only problem i know with the waggy 44 is its low pinion but that shouldn't matter unless you go bigger then 37s or a huge lift.You did get me thinking yukon and nitro both sell cut to length axles for the dana 60 you just need a good metal chop saw and grind the edge over.Do you have a good enough welder to shorten a axle tho?

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

I'm talking about factory ratio in later years. Was there an axle spline change somewhere along the line? I believe the HO52 went virtually unchanged through the tears, other than brakes which are interchangeable. I guess a check in the parts book would show where any changes were. If the axle spline count did change, you still would only need to modify the later axles, but keep the housing unchanged. And there would be no differential set-up requires..

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

They changed from ball bearing to tapered bearing at some point. There is also the load bolt that is always on the 72 and occasionally on the 52. Big long thread on Pirate. Good info. You can convert to 14 bolt shafts and 14 bolt Detroit and get away from the coarse spline axles.

There are a couple of threads over there as well on making an HO52 front axle and a few guys running them.

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/chevy...aton-h072.html

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

Thank Mike, What I meant was saw the bolt flange off the FF axle shaft. Bore the flange out to the axle diameter. Slide the bored flange on to where it needed to be, cut off the excess shaft, and weld the bolt flange back onto the shaft. Essentially shortening it on the outboard side so that resplining isn't required.

Lots of good advice here. I'll have to join pirate and do some reading. I really don't need to go all the way down to 60" if it's not feasible. 63 or even 65 might be ok. I plan to run skinny tires and stock looking rims so that will help in keeping the tires inside the fenders Thanks very much to all who've replied. Rick

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

Did you do a search of 4wd trucks your vintage? See what others have done, seeing pics may change your mind one way or the other....I see a truck like urs I believe in the Angry Orchard commercial, looks like 8 lug too.

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

I sure have looked a lot found very little for what I want to do. I first was going to use Toyota axles, then Wagoneer axles. But since I have this good GMC set I figure I should shorten them like the Jeep guys do and use what I already got.

Pretty much all of the 47-55.1 4wd builds I've seen have axles that are too wide for my taste. The tires stick way out and it's not what I'm going for. Here's a pic close to what I'm hoping to wind up with. Rick

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

You could narrow what you have, but wouldn't be cost effective. Do you want 6 or 8 lug axles? If you want 6 lug, go with waggy's front and rear. If you want 8 lug, then gonna havta narrow your set. If you use a waggy front and convert to 8 lug, it will widen it 1.5 IIRC, which is wider than what you want.

Re: Shortening Axles- Dana 60 Rear and 44 Front
 

What I've done is get a pass. side axle shaft out of a Waggy. It's 4" shorter than the GMC axle shaft. I'm going to shorten the long side tube 4" at the "C". That will get me close to what I want. From reading up a little more, it should get me down to 62.5". It may actually be wider than that since as you say, the 8 lug hubs may add some width too. I can mock it up first and see if it's going to be ok.

As far as the rear goes, I may shorten the shafts and the tubes myself. I still want to explore the idea of shortening them at the hub flange and rewelding them. Rick