front axle conversion on a 94 f150 questions.

[bocephus300]

i am helping a friend...
he has a 94 f 150 thats 2 wd, that he recently bought. it has some serious issues up front, its been hacked up pretty good and cant be allined.  it has lift coils, coil spacers and some ghetto fab "lift kit", its a real mess. my bright idea was maybe we should just put a strait axle and call it a day, he calls me today, he bought the front end. has anyone here done this type of swap? and have any advise besides run away?

[bocephus300]

by the way its a dana 44 front, with coil spring buckets. we would like to keep the coil springs.

[Justardnck]

I haven't done one but I have considered doing one on my older GMC. One issue you may run into is that a 2wd truck doesn't have the bends in the frame to accommodate the movement of a straight axle and I believe the solution is to leaf spring the front and sub-frame it which will result in a pretty tall lift. I had checked out doing it on a 1989 GMC 2wd and tossed the idea shortly after checking into it.

[IXIswamperIXI]

http://www.4x4extremesports.com/index.php?http://www.4x4extremesports.com/ifs-conversion-1.php

This might help.  Measure twice cut once  Good luck!

[bocephus300]

what a enormous pain in the butt this project was...and continues to be.   got it all in and it all works it seems just need to get a new tie rod!   i will think twice before offering to help next time!     thanks for the suggestions also guys!

[Justardnck]

what a enormous pain in the butt this project was...and continues to be.   got it all in and it all works it seems just need to get a new tie rod!   i will think twice before offering to help next time!     thanks for the suggestions also guys!

That's why I tossed the idea after checking into it. Glad to hear it worked out in the end though.

[bocephus300]

yea this project is definately not reccomended!