Building a dually my way....

[Tx Firefighter]

Well fellas, I'm doing a bit of a project and thought due to the depth of it all I would go ahead and post a build thread.

Basically, I have always wanted a dually truck to use as my work truck. I looked at length and couldn't really find a decent truck to build. I've been watching the buildup thread of 67 C30 and his truck with hips and it's not exactly what I need. I wanted the final product to be a cab and chassis, or a narrow rear truck.

Ultimately I decided that the 3/4 ton truck that I have now offered enough positive attributes that I decided it was worth the trouble of converting it to a dually.

To start with, its a highly optioned Super Cheyenne with a big block, TH400, Dana 60, tilt column, air conditioning, and leaf spring rear end.



In my research, I was told that converting the rear end was simply a matter of bolting on the wheels and making room for them to fit under the bed.

So my first purchase was 4 dually wheels. When I went to fit them, the inner wheel would not clear the brake drum. It fell about 7/16 of an inch short of seating onto the hub.

I am pretty attached to the rearend I have currently since it has a 300 dollar cover on it and new internals, including carrier, ring and pinion, and all bearings. I wanted to make this work without having to swap out the entire rear differential for a wider one.



So, what I did was order a set of 1/2 inch thick spacers off ebay. These would of course, coupled with dual wheels, require longer wheel studs.

I studied Dorman's website at great length and found a part number that is the same as my current Dana 60 studs, but greatly longer. So, off to the parts store I go, armed with my number. It took him 2 days and a lot of phone calls, but he came through.



(contd)