Rear Steering

[Moody Blues]

Has anybody used a dana 60 front axle in the rear for rear steering? I am just curious if it can handle the abuse. I do mostly street driving, snow plowing in the winter, mudding in nothing more than a foot deep stock tire's and would probly want an ARB locker. I rather not go with a 2 1/2 ton rockwell do to its weight and low gearing (I know what your thinking no gearing is to low). Let me know what you think or if you know any alternatives.

[bigoates]

Hey the D60's can def handle the abuse if you get the kingpin style and not the newer ball joint style axles.

As for cost effective, not entirely sure. It would take a whole lot more $$ to set up a d60 for a rear axle and rear steer in my opinion.

good luck man

[SGTHohensee]

Can it be done? Of course. Durable? As durable as any 1 ton axle ever made. Cost effective? Depends on how much of the work you can do yourself. I've helped do exactly this on a 79 K30. It was lifted 15" total with 44's and was just a toy for the owner. A lot of custom fab was going to be necessary anyways, so we grabbed the cheapest 60 we could find, which just happened to be a Dodge front end.

Cut the perches off, cut the knuckles off, remove the short tube, shorten the long tube, get generic tube, cut to length, weld to pumpkin, weld knuckles back to axle, (This is where it gets kind of tricky, you need to know what your pinion angle was before so you can set the caster. Quite a bit of math and lots of research will help you here) weld perches back on (again, make sure your angles are dead nuts on, though wedge shims can help if needed) reassemble and you're almost in business.

We used the power steering pump for the hydraulic pump, though contemplated using an electric pump for a time. Ran 2 3/8ths hard lines from a brass T on the pressure side, and to the pump on the low side, we installed all the way back to right above the rear axle on the driver's side. Now, starting on the axle, we mounted a hydraulic ram kind of like a steering stabilizer would mount. On top was solenoid that diverted the pressure to the correct port, allowing us to only run 1 pressure and 1 return line. I've seen them on load handling cranes we have in the military. We ran hard lines over and up the shock on the driver side. 1 trip to O'Reilly's rewarded us with a high pressure power steering hose with the correct fittings and the low pressure hose we needed. Lastly, a double pole double throw momentary on switch in the cab, controlled the ram through 2 relays.

Whew! That's she condensed version, and it's a lot of work. The worst part though, is it's not self centering. You could probably make it self centering with a little more work, but it was winter time and we wanted to do some wheeling. Think the reward is worth the price? I personally do since that greatly reduced the turning radius and that would be great for small parking lots in a plow truck. In fact, I think that would be the best thing you could do to a plow truck if you have small areas to turn around in. YMMV.

[Moody Blues]

Do you have to cut the knuckles off and turn them if your not running any lift? I think I would like to have a similar steering to yours but with some changes. I would like to have a hydraulic lever in the cap probably on the floor by the 4 wheel drive stick, I would like to have it "spring loaded" so it would come back to center when I let go of the lever. I hope I painted a picture in your mind what I am looking for. I do use this truck for plowing and it would be great for some of the driveways I do, also I would like to show of to my buddy who has a jeep and always bragging how tight it turns.

[LONGHAIR]

I have done this a few times for customers of the shop where I worked. The first one was on a friend's truck. It was an '87 K/20 with 15" of lift and 44" tires. The truck had less than 50 miles when the lift was done, it came straight from the dealership. The rear steering wasn't done until about 10k miles.
For me, the biggest fabricating issue was moving the rear springs inward. They need to be moved to give the tires clearence when turning. The stock location is outside the frame rails, which is too close to the tires. I moved the springs under the frame, similar to the front. In fact, I used factory brackets from another frame.
I did not do any of the cutting shortening/lengthening "stuff" that some say is required..... Since I used a Chevy Axle (and moved the springs) I didn't even have to mess with the perches. The differential being off-center is a non-issue, the u-joints don't care what direction they are angled toward. Nothing "custom" is required as far as axles this way. I did shim the pinion up a few degrees to correct the caster, but high-speed turning is not it's greatest concern....LOL.
I did build a "mount", welded to the axle housing that held a threaded "Nut" under the steering arm (which was left on the knuckle). This allowed a bolt to be driven through the steering arm to "lock" the steering straight. This was to prevent anyone "playing" with the steering when they weren't supposed to. I also installed a key switch to disable the pump. The "lock" was helpful on long road trips because the steering would have a tendancy to "drift".
It was an absolute blast to drive...but only the owner, his wife, and I were the only ones to ever get good enough with it to drive it on the street with the rear-steering operational.

I did a couple more in a very similar manner and one on a Blazer where the guy "insisted" that the differential be centered.....that one cost him plenty.

This was all in the late 80s...before Ohio's lift law brought them all down.