Dually swap

[NH2112]

A friend is looking to put a cab & chassis dually 14-bolt in his 84 K2500. He knows that there's very little clearance between the springs and wheel cylinders on the cab & chassis, and that his springs are 2" farther apart so lack of clearance will be even more of an issue. Has anyone done this conversion, and if so what did you do about the very limited clearance? Also, any other quirks or issues that you came up with would be helpful too. Thanks in advance.

[john bertges]

you will have to use a dually rear from a pick up the rear is wider and the spring perchs are wider to
or you can just leave the rear in the trk and put longer dually studs if it is a full floater

[NH2112]

The spring perches seem to be the problem, the cab & chassis spring perches are 40" apart and my friend's truck has them 42" apart. The cab & chassis have very little clearance between springs & backing plate as it is, I don't even think you'd be able to bleed the brakes with the springs 1" closer to the wheels. Plus, he wants the narrow rearend in order to keep the tires under the fleetide fender, or at least so he doen't need to put dually fenders on it.

[arveetek]

I know this has been done, I've seen a couple running around here from time to time that has a narrow rear end under it. I'm fairly certain, however, that the inner fender wells will have to be modified in order to accomodate the narrower wheel stance. I don't think there's enough room for a standard pickup bed to fit down between the wheels of a narrow rear axle. I'm not sure about the brake lines and such.

My dad had an '83 cab and chassis truck, and he installed a regular pickup bed on it. Had to make the fender wells larger to fit down between the wheels. That made the inside of the bed narrow enough that a 4' wide sheet of plywood would no longer lay down between the wells. He then swapped in a regular dually axle to fix that problem.

Casey

[leaf40]

Hi Phil,
I have a '87 K-30 dump with the narrow rear end. To bleed the brakes I removed the tires and came down from the top. I had to heat and straighten a 6-point box end wrench, then welded a short extension handle on it. If the inner tires hit the fenderwells, do wheel tubs.

[tpitt]

Phil,
In our other thread I forgot to tell you, but the one rearend was out of a single wheel 1 ton. I had the spring perches cut off and rewelded. I was too "chicken" to do this myself. For some reason I thought the 1 ton was wider perches, but don't remember now. I do know that with the 3.5" brakes the backing plate is recessed around the axle and are sort of a pain even with single wheels. I fought bleeding them the old fashion way for days. Even with help. I ended up borrowing a pressure bleeder from work and they bled instantly and never a problem since. Terry