Semi-Floating Dana 60 in 68’ GMC C1500

[DirtyLarry]

I got my 1968 GMC C1500 back in 1987 when I as only 15. After spending every dime I had on it throughout high school and college painting it and creating a monster out of the 396 I managed to wipe 4 teeth of the ring gear on the factory Dana 60 rear axle one night when I was racing. The axle broke around 1993 and I didn’t have enough money to put the Dana 60 back together so I swapped in a Dana 44 out of one of my parts trucks that we had lying around my dads shop at the time.

Fast forward 10 years to today…..I really want to rebuild the original Dana 60 which never gotten rid of…(thank god!) and was wondering if any of you have every seen one of these rare rear axles?

I have worked on many GM trucks while I was growing up at the dads shop and still play with them today….But, I have never seen another semi-floating (6 lug) Dana 60 in the rear of any other halfton GMC of that era. I know the axle was original as I bought the truck from the original owner and he said he ordered with a heavy-duty suspension package.

I have seen semi-floating Dana 60’s (5 lug) in the rear of old Mopar muscle cars and mid to late 80’s Ford F250 trucks (8 lug) but no other GMC’s.

For those of you that do not know the difference between semi-floating axles and full-floating axles…..the axle shaft itself is supports the weight of the truck on a semi-floater whereas a full-floater axle shaft is supported by two huge bearings in the hub. In the 67-72 trucks full floaters had 8 lugs and semi-floaters had 6 lugs.