Hi there everyone, I'm building a hotrod hauler from scratch and I need to find some full floating 6 x 5.5 hubs that I can use going to a Ford 9", I already have a housing, 3" axle tubes and big ford late housing ends, and Mobsteel wheels with a 6x5.5 lug pattern, I'm most likely going to pick parts off other things and have been doing a lot of looking online to find what parts would fit together, the axles themselves I will likely have custom made to suit. I tried searching the page for relevant threads but as far as I can see there isn't one yet
6 x 5.5" is 6 x 139.7mm That is standard Japanese PCD on most commercials Look for a rear end from a Toyota Dyna 150 "dually" [They are full floating] They also have 31 spline axles if it is a G series rear end.
Currie makes a 6 lug full float hub but GM has a 14 bolt 6 lug rear in full float that’s stouter than the 9 will ever be as far as hauling. 9 inch housing are 1/2 ton truck rear ends.
That's good to know, I'll certainly look into it, thing is I'm only going to be hauling about 10% of the time and I'm running an LS motor, I've heard mixed reviews on the 14 bolt, I suppose there's 9.5 , 10 and 11 is that right?
Why not just go 8-lug up front? If you are dead set on 6x5.5 I would just buy some custom or cut to fit axle shafts for the 9" in a 6x5.5 bolt pattern. Judging by the fact that you're not using an off road fabricated housing for the 9" and think a stock housing is sufficient I feel very confident that the stock wheel bearings too will be sufficient. If you really want full float then the sane option is to get a D60 or a 14B rear and buy the (expensive) aftermarket 6x5.5 hubs. (Whoever said that the 6-lug 14b is semi float is correct.) The second most sane option would be a 609 build with 6-lug D60 hubs. Going after obscure Toyota stuff is almost certainly a fool's errand in this case. If you absolutely feel compelled to build something custom then you'd be a moron to not base it around GM parts since they built far more 6x5.5 vehicles that are relevant to the task at hand. I would look into finding a way to fit a D44/10B front hub and spindle or a 6-lug unit bearing onto that 9". Lots of people have built full floating 9s with front spindles over the years. Read up on those builds. You'll need drive slugs (or use locking hubs) and custom shafts either way. AFAIK nobody currently makes unit bearing cups that fit a 6x5.5 unit bearing at present. It would make this last option more easy if they did though I still don't think it would make it the good option.
I’m about to weld and redrill my 9 inch axles for the gm 6 lug to run OT wheels on a project. Only due to the available 6 lug axles being too wide or too narrow to tuck the wheels up in the body of the ride correctly The 9 was perfect. Just the wrong bolt pattern. round track guys have ran full float 9s for ever. Stuff is out there. But gm already makes one if it’s the correct width. 14 bolt issues? Never knew they had any more issues than any other rear end.
It's kind of a shitty combination of parts. Like they went all in on some attributes and phoned in others and the attention to detail could be better. It's basically GM's first attempt at a real truck axle and it shows. The housing costs a ton of ground clearance. The spindles bend a little eaiser than other 1-ton stuff. The stupid offsets on the hubs sure doesn't help the spindle bending situation. There's a reason GM kept the D70 in the duallies for so long. It got a lot better when GM outsourced it to AAM but they revised it. But, AAM revised away the removable pinion. Some people really liked that. I think that love is a relic from an age when your average enthusiast was half literate, had the wrong tools and was working out of a service manual half eaten and soaked in rodent piss. In this day and age when anyone can watch countless people set up gears on Youtube and buy the right tools on the internet without any doubt whether they'll be fit for purpose I think that easiness matters a lot less. Don't get me wrong, it's a 1-ton axle for sure, but it's popularity relative to the others seems to mostly be a reflection of how prolific it was in the junkyards when the hot rod community was getting online and inertia after that. I think that most people are better served by something else. Dana 70, Ford 10.5/10.25, AAM 10.5, etc.
I dont really see how its obscure toyota stuff, I can get complete full floating hub assemblies from an 80 series that ran dana 80 axles for under 500 bucks and axles made to go from them to the 9" for around 600, my truck is only going to carry a starlet drag car at MAYBE 1 ton, seems like a good option
I’m running a gm 70hd. But only cause it was the width I needed. Friends pound the crap out of 14 bolts in the woods Gm tech friend has one with a ton of towing miles on. I haven’t ran into those issues but I don’t doubt they exist. Only suggested cause it’s already 6 lug and full float.
Is the goal here to build something unique or to get it done sensibly and on a budget? Because you can get any 1-ton rear end you want from the junkyard and have someone weld up and turn the hubs and rock out for the $500 you'd spend on hubs. Won't be a Ford 9. Won't have Toyota parts so you won't get points from that crowd. But if you pick the right one it'll just work for a very long time for not much money. Yeah, I'm not saying they're weak but they could really use more spindle for hard truck use. For off road they tend to be pretty good because the vehicles are lighter and you need the extra ring gear. As stated, you can't get 6-lug and full float paired together in the same axle though.
You might just be correct. Ive seen em. But could nave been custom. the hubs are out there. I’ve seen em welded and redrilled as well The OP mentioned hauling a 2k pound car The 9 would handle that like it is.
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