New Axles

[TowerRigger]

After Christmas I am going to have some ford 9 axle housings made for my truck. I was wondering what some pros and cons of going wider than stock width would be? Also if it IS a good idea to go wider, how much?

[vwfastg60]

I look at wheeling like any other car....lower and wider. My truck is too tall in my opinion and needs to be wider if its that tall. If i could find D60s in my reach i would. I added spacers and it made the truck way more stable. The only down side i see is being wider makes it harder to run the tight trails. We ran one last week where i was as wide as the trail and it sucked. By going wider you get your tires out there to hit rather then the body but at the same time catch more then they would if they were tucked away.

As far as wheeling you will be able to tip more before rolling and if you can keep it low then your even better off....Remember lift what you need to fit the tire you want and thats it you can trim if you need.

my.02

[Volcom]

Most D60's and FF14 Bolts are 67" WMS to WMS (Wheel mounting surface). My dad has a set of D60's and a 14 Bolt and they are very wide. But necessary if you plan on running 40"+ tires.

I think a good width is @ 63-64" WMS. Wide enough for the big rocks but still narrow enough for regular trails.

[RedRunnertc]

Yeah, the biggest problem is not being able to fit between trees and rocks and having to crawl over them, which can be tough.

The wider you go, the lower you can be for the same size tire, and/or compression travel (which is far more useful than droop travel IMHO) can increase accordingly.

Also the wider you are, the more leverage you have on the suspension. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. Flex can increase, but so will body roll.

What axles? Diamond? SpiderTrax?

[Volcom]

I forgot to add, a rear full floater 14 bolt with drum brakes weighs in @ 550 lbs. Took 3 of us to get it off of the trailer :D Make sure you regear with that extra weight in mind.

[TowerRigger]

I already have a 14 bolt full floater that I shaved an inch off of and made a tuff ass diff cover for. that thing is just too big. I lifted it ONCE from the shop floar to a dolly and that was it. Used the cherry picker after that.lol

To answer you Troy. I was bull shitting trucks with my brother-in-law and it came up that I wanted to do the diamond axle thing. He said "Why? I have all the tooling to build nine inch housings in any width. Just pick up a housing for 75 bucks and I'll do the rest..." I already have all the D44 front hub stuff so he said he'd machine a flange to mount it to the dif to make it full float rear. Along with a generous amount of armor/reinforcing. Obviously he's not doing it for free but it's a hell of a lot cheaper than anything else. I don't know what I'm doing with the front yet. One thing at a time.:D

[devinsixtyseven]

If you can, go out 2x as much as you go up, or just go out afa possible. Volcom's suggestion is a good one, particularly if you have a narrow truck anyway. IMHO plan your total width a few inches beyond the fenders and then add sliders to match your total width. With your wheelbase and body width I wouldn't hesitate to go 70" and run a deep backspaced wheel to keep the scrub radius down, plus kickouts on the sliders. You'll be no wider than 84" with a zero offset wheel.

67/66 fits fine through the trees...that's Tundra width and LT Taco. 70/72 is getting a little tricky in spots since total width is about 85" right now but with your narrower body and shorter wheelbase, plus the ability to go deeper backspacing on the solid axle if you plan it right, you can run a wide axle with deep backspacing, get stability, strength and turning radius, go wherever you want, etc...

There are a bunch of people on CO4x4 running full width (~70") axles and big wide tires w/o width problems on the trails.

Only issues I really can think of are needing kickouts and strong axles, for the reasons Troy mentioned.