[Joe Dillard]

Last year I started researching a HPD60 swap into my YJ and gathering the parts. I ended-up with (according to the BOM) 1988 1/2 to 1991 1/2 Ford kingpin HPD60 from out of an F350. I wanted a 1978-1979 axle, but those are becoming fairly hard to come by & sometimes folks want the big bucks for 'em. Eventually I found this axle as a pretty good alternative.

Its high pinion, driver drop, stock 35 spline inners and carrier, 30 spline outers & hubs and has kingpins instead of balljoints which makes it fairly easy to install hysteer arms. Width is ~69" WMS-WMS. A couple of differences between the 78/79 axle & the one I got is that the driver side axle tube on mine is shorter by ~4" and the stock ford spring perches are ~36.6" which causes spring hanger mounts to be addressed since mine is staying SOA for now.

Unless you are a powerlifting musclehead, I don't suggest lifting this thing by yourself. According to what I found, it weighs between 560-580# in its stock form.

Here she is when I first brought her home from the junkyard:





I went ahead and got new calipers, rotors, pads, wheel studs, and a hub nut socket tool. For now, I'm going to stick with the 8 lug pattern - but that could change depending on how the rest of the build goes.











The brakes on it have seen better days.



Here's what I did to move things along a little bit. I started by disassembling the hubs.

The phillips head screw retains the hub lock switch, so I simply removed the screw & removed the red switch.



Next was to remove the six, 9/64" allen head screws that hold the "hub cap" on.



Here's what it looks like removed:





Next was to remove that phillips head screw at ~ the 9 o'clock position:





Then out comes this ring and spring behind it:







Now its time to remove two snap rings. One inner & one outer.



I like to screw two of the allen head screws back into it and gently pull the inner parts out:







Looking back inside - you can see the hub nuts and a washer between them that I need to remove.



Using my newly aquired trusty D60 hub nut socket I removed things.



Keyed washer:





Second nut:





More to follow.....

A birds nest and a couple loose lugs fell out as I was disassembling things.


Here's another loose lug that was somehow trapped behind the rotor (5 total).



A couple taps with a dead blow hammer & the caliper & hub came right off....along with the hub bearing of course.





Spindle exposed:



A couple more taps and the lugs came loose from the rotor & hub so I could seperate them.



Upon initial inspection, the hub internals look good.



I then wrapped the spindle & removed it from the kingpin.



Once the five 11/16" spindle nuts were removed, all it took was a couple taps of the dead blow & things came right off:



Spindle bearing:



Trashed rotor/dust shield.



Caliper bracket ready to come off:



Caliper bracket coming off then cleaned-up:







Caliper slider area looks pretty good to me.





I protected the spindle bearing then started cleaning it up some.







Well, this particular weekend was filled with my youngest sons high school graduation ceremony, two parties (or was it three? ) one of my sons moving back in with me for the time being, and a garage reorganization project. I did end-up borrowing a hoist from a friend so that I could move the axle from my trailer into my garage. Its now resting on a couple furniture dollies and jack stands.

I often work by myself on my own projects - so moving a 460+lbs axle around isn't much fun by yourself and can be dangerous. They seem to have a mind of there own and the weight can shift suddenly. I wanted to prevent a fall or injury. Plus, with the weather getting warm/hot, I needed to get it out of the sun & into my garage. The hoist made quick work of that.

I need to cut the unnecessary brackets off the axle & I didn't want to use my plasma cutter & start my wooden deck trailer on fire. :eek: :laugh:

[Joe Dillard]

I played a bit by mostly grinding down the old mounts and inspected the HPD60 differential internals.







After some work:















As you can see, the knuckles and adjacent areas could sure use some attention. So....that's where I focused today.

Before:




After:


Before:


After:




Kinda hard to tell by these pics, but these are the hub internals after being degreased, and the caliper bracket & spindle cleaned-up and new high heat paint applied to them.








Spindle:


Caliper bracket:




27 spline inner vs 35 spline inner:


I wire wheeled till I could barely stand listening to the el cheepo drill I was using anymore. So....I started with a couple coats of flat black primer, then after seeing the results I decided to paint it with flat black paint as well. Then cleaned up the hubs (more wire wheeling :D ) then primer & high heat paint.

I pressed new wheel studs into 1 hub & 1 new rotor and began assembling the caliper brackets & spindles.

[Joe Dillard]

My son Rusty assisted with some "test assembly" of the hubs, rotors, calipers, pads.

At this point I still needed to rattle can some heat paint on the calipers, and do the kingpin / bearing inspection & final assembly.





I picked-up a set of these as part of the steering solution:



Goes to show....one mans junk is another mans treasure.

Warn 27 spline chromo stub shaft top - aw12345's old (Joes new ) 35 spline chromo D60 stub shaft below.

Thanks, Art!



I made a little more progress. I installed the hub bearings, hub nuts, torqued them down to specs, then installed the rest of the hub internals.

Hard to tell, but the hub bearing is back behind all that grease.



This is the first hub nut installed. Notice the pin on the hub nut at ~1:30 position. The first nut gets tightened down to 50ft lbs then backed back out ~90*. Then you add the hub washer (which is keyed to the spindle and has holes in it for the pin) & then I tightened down the second nut to 50ft lbs & called it good.



Next up was the hub internals going in & then add the two snap rings. One snap ring goes on the end of the axle shaft, while the other large snap ring goes on the hub itself.



I installed the rest of the hub internals, but don't show that here because I showed them earlier being removed & wanted to cut down on some of the repetition.

Here's both ends fully assembled:







I took a measurement for simulation purposes to see appoximately where the high steer knuckle bolt would end up at & this is what I saw.

It looks like ~6.25" of backspace room using a piece of tube that's 7/8" in diameter. Naturally, this doesn't account for the room needed for the heim, but I think there's enough room if I go with a 4.75" BS wheel, but I'm not 100% sure yet. We'll see.



I got these items in from RuffStuff Specialties (thanks Dan!) and steering arms from Artec (thanks Nate!). Plus, I went out & bought some 1.5"x.25" wall DOM locally for my steering links.

These are the 7/8" heims, weld in bungs, jam nuts, Way Back shackle hangers for outboarding the leafs etc:







THAT's a serious steering arm! Plus most of the rest of the crossover steering install items from Artec.





I found some wheels to go with the new lug pattern. They are Walker Evans 17x8.5" beadlocks. Backspacing is ~5" IIRC.

[Joe Dillard]

What a hassle it was to mount the wheels on it. This sucker fought me tooth & nail but they finally got mounted. The stock steering link is there just so that the knuckles didn't fight me as much when I was trying to install the wheels. Funny how it always wants to use gravity to fight you and swing around.

Trying to manuver a 460+lb axle by yourself, plus the weight of the wheels & tires isn't much fun.









These are the front outboard shackle hangers "in-the-works".

I anticipate cutting a portion of the top of it down ~1". Right now its ~4" tall & I'm going to take this opportunity to lower my Jeep ~1" by raising the outboard mount a little higher than stock.

This will put the shackle end up higher against the edge of the frame & I'll duplicate the same thing at the spring hanger end. Doing both ends will lower my Jeep ~1".









Slowly but surely......now if "work" wouldn't get in the way.



Pulled the HPD30 and slung the HPD60 under it for an initial "look".







Did I already mention that this thing is painfull to move around?







The front shackle hangers came off SUPER easy. About 1.5 minutes with the 4.5" angle grinder is all it took to get them to where a chisel did the rest.





Then I used the angle grinder to remove the crossmember snout:



Then I layed down a practice bead and welded the hanger to the outboard mount I made:









Looks like it lined up perfect.



Here's what the other end of the outboard mounts look like:

I caught my oldest son Rusty hacking on my Jeep :eek: He was actually doing some prep work.



I made 4 of these puppies as a part of the outboard mounts:



Initial fitment before adding gussets or any welding etc:

Take note of how the frame plate has a slot notched out of it that contours around the body mount for added strength.







These aren't the actual pieces (the real ones are larger) but this gives you an idea as to how some of the additional gussets will be added:

Oh, that chalk mark along the vertical area of the frame plate partially blocked by the c-clamp is where the spring bolt needs to be aligned with for proper spring placement.


This piece will be welded to the bottom as well:







More gusseting will be added - but here's another view:



Looking from the bottom & after taking a few measurements, this will provide the additional 3" of width I need on each side.

[Joe Dillard]

Did a little welding on the mounts in my spare time.







I had a few folks ask if I had ran beads on the inside portion of the spring hangers. Well, yep. I also added a gusset that ties the hanger into the body mount.





Oddly enough, that little gusset (mostly hidded behind the clamps) that ties the hanger into the body mount was a PITA to make due to multiple compound angles.



I tacked it on, then removed the mount to make welding it a bit easier.







I made the other outboard mounts for the driver side a while back, and made some spring plates & bolted it up to check things.

Driver side outboard shackle mount fabbed up:





Passenger side spring plate:



Test fit:





The driver side isn't as easy to install standard style ubolts as the passenger side was.

The lower diff rib is ~1" thick. I wanted to see if I could drill a 9/16" hole in it and not remove as much material as if I had did a simple notch.

I took a punch to mark it then went to town drilling it in small increments eventually stepping to a 9/16" bit. I used my trusty 1/2" hand held Craftsman to do the drilling.

This is the location I started drilling, then went up in size.



This was when it was at ~1/2". You may notice I removed the diff cover bolt so that my drill chuck wouldn't hit on it as I drilled.



Done. To get the ubolt to swing up into place, I opened up the ubolt a little so that I could get it to pass around the inner C.







The other mounts are partially welded to the point some weight can be placed on it, and its finally resting on the tires.











Perhaps I'm fooling myself by attempting to leave the stock steering box in its stock location and playing around with everything else BUT the real solution.

For the folks who haven't seen what the upper kingpin internals look like with the cover, teflon bushing and spring removed looks like:



To put the new studs in, I just double nutted them so that I could wrench them down to the point that the lower threads start to bottom out & used some Loctite.

As you can see here - even with the shock body angled out a bit, there's simply not enough room on the axle tube to mount "traditional" lower shock mounts without having the shock body contact the spring plate.

As soon as things started flexin' I'd tear the shock mount and/or destroy the shock. Time to get creative.









Here's how the remainder of the steering turned out so far. Things look as though I may be okay in the room department except for frenching the frame. It looks like there's ~1/2" clearance between the DPA & tierod at the closest point.

Whatcha think?

















I *think* that pitrman arm is limiting full steering travel. Here's a few pics I snapped.

Full passenger just before the pump starts hissing:











Full driver just before the pump starts hissing:





Looks to me like passenger isn't too bad - but driver needs improvement.

Granted, I haven't taken a look yet with the tires installed to see how close they'll come to the leafs - but I'm not too concerned with that. Brakes are now hooked up as well, but not bled yet.

[Livefree]

Really nice write up. To bad it you had to put that axle under a YJ (just kidding) looks like you had a good game plan and it is turning out like you planned.

[RockTime]

really nice write up might be one of the best ever on this site lol but one thing i saw was you used your old lock outs figured you updated and upgraded everything else. why not do them? get write you and i am with livefree to bad it is on a yj lol jk

[MikeJoel]

cool write up, and pics.

[Joe Dillard]

Thanks guys.

Yep, its been a learning experiance and I've changed a few things along the way.

As suggested, the stock hubs are short-lived. I have been gathering more parts as the budget allows which will eventually have me with 35 spline chromo inners and outers, and drive slugs.

Well......It's alive! It had been immobile for ~2 1/2 months.

It's now got wider hips, bigger pot belly, bigger feet, and needs some new front teeth (gears/locker).

I drove it around a little & as expected, turning passenger was excellent, but driver sucked.

Couple driveway shots.







Okay, I'm not much of a fan of poser pics. These were taken while measureing for shocks and to see how much I'll need to french the frame for steering link clearance.





You can see here that the drag link contacts the frame (I suspected that it would) which is why I need to french the frame.





Well....its time to get busy & install the next set of options.

Master install kit, axle shaft Spicer ujoints, HP 4.56 gears, and 35 spline Detroit.

Some folks may ask/wonder......why 4.56 gears and not something deeper? Reason being, I have an Atlas 5.0 which is similar to running an Atlas 4.3 & 5.38's.









While I was out screwing around.....I decided to grab a new yoke to replace the current one which has a chip in it where the ujoint cap tab is at.

Parts & part numbers are as follows for the pic below:

1. Spicer 29 spline yoke for 1350 ujoint. PN 3-4-5731-1X
2. Spicer bearing strap kit. PN 3-70-28X
3. Spicer 1350 to 1310 combo ujoint. PN 5-460X



I was informed that Spicer has discontinued making the ubolt style yokes. The PN I listed above is for the strap style yoke NOT the ubolt style yoke. I also have a ubolt style kit for a 1350 ujoint which I believe if I were to drill the yoke threads out, I'd be able to use it.

The Spicer PN for the ubolt kit is: 3-94-18X

I ended up welding on my homebrew shock tabs:



As suspected, since the HPD60 diff snout is longer than the HPD30's I needed to shorten my front drive shaft, which is no big deal.

You can see here - its too long.



So, I decided to pull the shaft, mark it up so that after I shorten it & then reinstall it, it'll go back together in-phase.



I cut this section out of it:







I was not only shortening the tube, I decided to plug weld it & sleeve it with a section of 4130 chromolly as well.

[Big Red One]

Looks good, I did mine with the 78 F-250 version, but I narrowed it to 63" , went with the stock hubs and squeezed my 15's over chevy calipers, I went with OTT high steer arms, it was especially fun pounding the inner 'C's back on by myself... had to buy a longer pitman to get it to contact the stops. I got lucky a few years back and picked up the 'empty' housing on E-bay for $300.00

[JeepinIan]

Is the pitman arm cenetered? That may be what is limiting your turning to the drivers side. As you probably know, you need the steering wheel centered, and the pitman arm centered, in order to get the same turning radius both ways from the the steering box.

[Joe Dillard]

Big Red One, on 26 April 2012 - 04:15 PM, said:

Looks good, I did mine with the 78 F-250 version, but I narrowed it to 63" , went with the stock hubs and squeezed my 15's over chevy calipers, I went with OTT high steer arms, it was especially fun pounding the inner 'C's back on by myself... had to buy a longer pitman to get it to contact the stops. I got lucky a few years back and picked up the 'empty' housing on E-bay for $300.00

Nice. Yep, I'll bet it was a real PITA to get the knuckles back in place by pounding them with a BFH.

JeepinIan, on 27 April 2012 - 10:09 AM, said:

Is the pitman arm cenetered? That may be what is limiting your turning to the drivers side. As you probably know, you need the steering wheel centered, and the pitman arm centered, in order to get the same turning radius both ways from the the steering box.

I'm going to be screwing around with it today. I suspect the pitman could be off-center like you mentioned, plus possibly a longer pitman is going to be needed.

Hydro assist is on the list of things as the budget allows. Playing in the big rocks/Hammers trails with stock power steering and red lable krawlers is gunna suck.

On another note....I got this little jewel in the works as a reinforcement for when I french the frame.

[Big Red One]

The ram would be a good choice, steering the 40's before I put mine on was a GOOD workout... the reason your stock pitman does not turn the wheels far enough is the 60 knuckles are larger, as is the distance from the pivot point (kingpin) to the hole in the high steer arm where the drag link attaches. You will need a pitman with @ 6" of 'throw' to move the wheels from one stop to the other on the knuckles. If I remember the pitman arm will be @ 1.5" longer than stock, now you run into the problem of the end of the pitman hitting the tie rod when the wheels are straight and the front suspension compresses. Let me know if you need the bracket I spoke of... OR you can cut the frame just behind the steering box mounting holes and 'stretch' the frame a bit to give you the clearance you need...

[Joe Dillard]

Yea, it looks like its gunna need some tweeking to get it to work correctly. That frame bracket might be the ticket. I'll let you know. Thanks.

I finally got around to pulling the drag link & tie rod, cleaned them up, primered & painted them.







I *might* be able to force down a couple of these.

[RockTime]

looking really good where do you go to wheel most of the time

[Joe Dillard]

Johnson Valley is my wheeling place of choice. I typically spend ~2-4 weeks a year in Moab, and Colorado. AZ & NV have some excellent wheeling as well that I like to visit a couple times a year.

[Jim B]

Joe, long time. Looks like you still have quite a bit of energy left in your bones.

Exceptional write up, one of the better on here on JT Took me a while to go through it and digest some of the pics. Amazing what you can do from a junkyard.

Have a few questions, don't have any experience with kingpins myself as I run the ball joints. Any pro/cons to this regarding repairs

Interesting to know how your 30 spline outers hold up after a few trips so you'll have to keep up updated. Are you going up in tire size, what kind of tires are running (you mentioned redl lable), could not tell

Hefty high steer arm and nice find on the Walker Evans.

The steering came out really sweet some of the clearances look close but you wont' really know if anything hits until you work it on the trail, heaven know how many times I thought something cleared only to find out different. It seems like you got some nice angle steer from the pics. Maybe after you check center on pitman.

You mentioned frenching the frame so the drag link clears, not sure what you mean by this Are you half mooning the area? Nice machining work.

I'm planning AZ next year, maybe we can hook up, there are 3 to 4 areas in AZ I would like to revisit before I get any older.

[JeepinIan]

Big Red One, on 28 April 2012 - 01:31 PM, said:

The ram would be a good choice, steering the 40's before I put mine on was a GOOD workout... the reason your stock pitman does not turn the wheels far enough is the 60 knuckles are larger, as is the distance from the pivot point (kingpin) to the hole in the high steer arm where the drag link attaches. You will need a pitman with @ 6" of 'throw' to move the wheels from one stop to the other on the knuckles. If I remember the pitman arm will be @ 1.5" longer than stock, now you run into the problem of the end of the pitman hitting the tie rod when the wheels are straight and the front suspension compresses. Let me know if you need the bracket I spoke of... OR you can cut the frame just behind the steering box mounting holes and 'stretch' the frame a bit to give you the clearance you need...

IIRC, the distance form the centerline of the holes on the pitman arm and the steering arm need to be the same, as you mentioned. You can shorten the length of the pitman arm, and reduce the turn angle and/or slower turning response, or lengthen it and increase (to the stops) turning angle and quicken the turning response.

[Joe Dillard]

Jim B, on 30 April 2012 - 07:54 AM, said:

Joe, long time. Looks like you still have quite a bit of energy left in your bones.

Exceptional write up, one of the better on here on JT Took me a while to go through it and digest some of the pics. Amazing what you can do from a junkyard.

Have a few questions, don't have any experience with kingpins myself as I run the ball joints. Any pro/cons to this regarding repairs

Interesting to know how your 30 spline outers hold up after a few trips so you'll have to keep up updated. Are you going up in tire size, what kind of tires are running (you mentioned redl lable), could not tell

Hefty high steer arm and nice find on the Walker Evans.

The steering came out really sweet some of the clearances look close but you wont' really know if anything hits until you work it on the trail, heaven know how many times I thought something cleared only to find out different. It seems like you got some nice angle steer from the pics. Maybe after you check center on pitman.

You mentioned frenching the frame so the drag link clears, not sure what you mean by this Are you half mooning the area? Nice machining work.

I'm planning AZ next year, maybe we can hook up, there are 3 to 4 areas in AZ I would like to revisit before I get any older.

Hi Jim, yea, I haven't been around here much lately.

As far as these kingpins go, I'm a newbie with them. I do know that removing them takes a 7/8" allen wrench & they are torqued down to ~500'#'s so getting them out is generally no easy task. A 10' breaker bar could come in handy. My understanding is that they are pretty durable and I would think that if mud got into the bearings/internals, it could cause issues. I'm not very familiar with them so I don't wanna blow smoke.

The Artec hysteer arms eliminate the stock kingpin springs by installing new teflon inserts & applying torque to the inserts by way of a locking set screw and thick flat washer. It seems to be fine so far.

Tires are 37x12.5x17 BFG Red Lable Krawlers KX. I got them locally from a KOH competitor, same with the beadlocks.

Yep, I need to french the frame above where the steering links are at for added room during hard suspension compression. Like you mentioned, I'll basically be 1/2 mooning it and adding reinforcement side plates as well.

AZ is loaded with fun areas to wheel! I have a handful of local AZ friends that typically host runs while I'm there. They help make short work of searching for the trailheads. Florence Junction & Table Mesa are examples of a couple areas where you are sure to have a fun time. I have a good friend near Sedona that suppose to show me around next time I'm in the area. The wheeling possibilities are nearly endless, so yep, keep me in mind if/when you make your way west.

I have a couple of old numbers of yours - perhaps I should give you a ring sometime.

My current rear suspension is scheduled to go away. I'll have a hybrid coilover 4 link set-up hopefully before too much longer. I have been gathering parts for that swap and have nearly everything. A tub mounted GenRight fuel cell is in the mix of things as well since the wheelbase will be ~104". I'm in the process of designing a belly-up for the Atlas & that has to go in first.

A corp 14 bolt could be in the mix as well.

Good to hear from you!

[Big Red One]

If the kingpins are not pitted or damaged in any way I would leave them alone, when I removed mine I used a big allen wrench with about 5' of 1.5" schedule 80 pipe over the end of the allen, leave the axle installed in the Jeep it keeps the axle stable and LEAN into it... the pop will be so loud you'll think you broke the allen. If you need any input on the 14 Bolt 'Pirate 4x4' tech page has good info.

[Krocker]

I thought it's a CJ but the title said it was YJ so I never doubted it, it's a hard project but you're doing good

[MikeJoel]

looking good man

[Joe Dillard]

I finally got around to taking some pics of where I tied the hysteer arms into the knuckle steering arms.

[Jim B]

That last pick is sweet. Exceptional high steer.

I don't see a power assist with that OEM steering box, not sure if I'm missing something...

[Joe Dillard]

Jim B, on 06 February 2013 - 09:36 AM, said:

That last pick is sweet. Exceptional high steer.

I don't see a power assist with that OEM steering box, not sure if I'm missing something...

Thanks.

I've leaving the hydro assist monkey business up to Blaine. I'm dragging my junk up to his house to have him work some magic with it (custom tummy tuck, fuel cell, rear coilover 4 link, wheelbase stretch to ~104", comp cut) blah blah blah.

[Krocker]

wow!that's perfect! look neat and the details are good too.