Not your Average Dana 60 Swap

[bike-maker]

Input rod difference

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Left is stock Superduty, right is modified. Cut about an inch out, then threaded both ends to 7/16” fine. Coupling nut with copious amounts of red loc-tite (just on one end to lock it in place),and a jam nut = the added benefit of being able to adjust the height of the brake pedal.
Never liked how the brake pedal sat proud of the clutch pedal.

Mounting plates: F-Superduty on top of Superduty

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These two are interchangeable, you could use the older plate and stick it right on the newer booster, but I don’t know where you could possibly locate just this plate, and I wanted to keep the older setup complete for resale.
Notice that bottom left hole? Can’t just redrill that one, so I welded all four holes up, then drilled the newer plate to the older hole spacing. Even though the newer plate is bigger, there was plenty of room for it on the firewall.

 

[bike-maker]

The adapter debacle......

The best tidbit of info I’ve found on all the fitting sizes; you can look up hoses, steering box etc. by application on the Napa website, scroll down and look at the specifications, and it tells you the size / type of fittings used.

My original brake lines were SAE inverted flare: newer master used metric bubble flare fittings. Found some Edelmann adapters at Summit Racing to solve that one.

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Also used one of their brake proportioning valves. Added some custom bracketry for the valve and power steering filter, and re-bent the lines from the master to the proportioning valve - the brake lines now enter the master on the opposite side.

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[bike-maker]

The adapter debacle: pressure line addition.

Older booster pressure lines are a SAE o-ring fitting. Newer are the same style of o-ring fitting, but a metric version. But the newer booster also has the addition of a short piece of hard line that adapts that o-ring fitting to special internal o-ring, Teflon sealed swivel fitting abomination on both ends.
Stuck Superduty lines (booster side) shown below.

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That swivel fitting on the left should look familiar to some as it’s the same style of fitting that goes into the stock C3 power steering pump on mid 1989 and up trucks.
The same fitting that was successful in kicking my ass earlier in this thread...

And this pic shows that extra hard line / adapter piece.

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The Superduty hose from the booster to the pump has the 18mm version of the fitting shown above on the booster side, and the 16mm version going into the power steering pump. So that line should screw directly in to the standard C3 pump (89.5 and up), although there would be some re-bending of the hard line to make it line up.

So my recommendation on this swap would be to use the 05+ steering box, booster, master cylinder, and lines. The lines should work without modification, and you wouldn’t have the headache of reaming out the older pitman arm.

But not in my case.

I already have a good steering box and have converted to the Saginaw power steering pump....

My Saginaw pump has a 3/8” inverted flare inlet, and the steering box (80-97 version) has an inlet fitting that is 5/16” inverted flare. The newer Superduty lines - despite their metric fittings - use 3/8” tube. So I chopped the 2 ends off, and re-flared them to 3/8” inverted flare.
The last piece of the puzzle was an adapter that went from 3/8 female inverted flare to 5/16 male inverted flare to connect the pressure line to the steering box.

Ordered from the local Napa

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[bike-maker]

Since my booster came from a junkyard, I ordered a rebuild kit from pirate jack, fluffed, buffed, and threw it all back together.
Excellent write from the sticky.

https://www.oilburners.net/threads/hydroboost-reseal-tutorial-long.72688/

 

[bike-maker]

So how’s it work?

I’ve seen a significant amount of past debate on this forum about the effects of changing to a different bore size master cylinder. I just went from a 1-1/8” master to 1-1/2” so here’s my thoughts:
My thinking was that the bigger volume of fluid in the bigger master would require less pedal travel but more pressure on the pedal. This does seem to hold true but; the brakes are now sensitive enough that during normal driving just the act of picking your leg up and dropping it on the pedal is more than enough pressure to slow the truck down. If you do have to brake hard, you have to push harder on the pedal. But under normal stop and go conditions, the extra sensitivity in the brakes makes it seem like it doesn’t take any more pressure.
Clear as mud, right?

Maybe I’m just heavy footed.

I have been credited with braking a throttle pedal in half in this truck - towing a big 5er while still NA killed that one.

 

[austin92]

Which proportioning valve did you use? Did you by pass the factory one?


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[bike-maker]

Yep, no RABS fanciness on the old bullnose. Took the stock proportioning valve apart, and gutted / drilled it so it’s essentially just a junction block now.

 

[austin92]

Well my rear brakes grab harder than they should when it’s cold or wet out. I know they’re adjusted right, I’ve been suspecting the proportioning valve but no one stocks it. If that one works well, what is it?


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[ifrythings]

Nice to see someone else finally switch over to the superduty Hydroboost and master cylinder. I was running the OBS stuff and didn’t like the feel of the pedal, come to find out that the MC on the superduty is a bit different internally than the older generation.

I did the swap a bit different, I swapped the plate and rod from the OBS Hydroboost to the superduty one ( got an 08 ford Hydroboost from rockauto as it was cheaper then any of the other ones, not sure why cheaper though as they look the same)

Before shot and some reason I don’t have an after shot of the 08 Hydroboost

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Now the big thing I found in the MC was the use of an extra valve in the front brake systems piston, this valve prevents the front brakes from making pressure for the first little bit of brake pedal activation but the rear system starts to make pressure right away.

Note: order of parts is how they sit in the MC.

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The pin in the center of this piston rests against a a pin that’s in the housing (horizontal pin shown in above picture just below the MC housing) that allows the fluid to bypass the piston unit a certain amount of travel has occurred.

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And just a few more pics of the internals of the MC, also the extra sensor on mine is the brake pressure transducer used for the integrated trailer brake controller. It’s a simple 3 wire (+5v, ground and output) sensor, will output linearly 0.5v-4.5v for pressures from 0 psi to 2,500 psi if you ever wanted to know your brake pressure.

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[bike-maker]

Something I learned the hard way during this swap: my pushrod between the booster and master cylinder was too long by about .080”. I didn’t notice it at first because the master was a pretty tight fit in the booster. It engaged the master just enough that it closed off the transfer ports and wouldn’t allow any brake fluid to enter the system from the reservoir. Figured that out after trying to bleed the brakes most of the day and getting nowhere.
I’ve since learned to use this to my advantage. You can partially apply the brake pedal - I used a stick between the seat and brake pedal - and then disconnect any components downstream of the master. Like a caliper for instance. As long as the transfer ports in the master stay blocked, enough vacuum is created that you don’t loose any fluid; usually can get away without bleeding.

 

[bike-maker]

On to the next; spare tire storage.

IIRC a couple of the threads I linked to in the beginning started talking about trying to fit the newer, bigger spare tire in the stock location. I regularly haul a slide in camper packed with kids, dogs, food, whiskey, guns, etc., so carrying a full-size spare is s requirement to me. And rolling in and out of the camper wasn’t a good option.
Ive found it’s possible, but you have to want it.

I’m running stock 18” Superduty wheels along with stock size tires - which measure about 33”. Wouldn’t fit up inside the hitch, wouldn’t even fit between the hitch and rear end. But there is just barely enough room between the frame rails.

I decided the stock hitch needed to go.

I drug home a OEM Ford hitch off a 2015 F350. $35 from a local service body upfitter. They had a stack of about 6 off of brand new trucks.

Looks like this

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The side plates being towards the outside, and the curve on the bar that spans between the 2 sides allows for way more room for a spare tire. It’s a class V and has the 2.5” receiver.

But don’t go thinking it bolts right on. More to come on that.

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[Oledirtypearl86]

I seen today at Walmart a guy had a truck with a slide in camper and his spare tire was on the receiver and folded down wish I got a pic was a pretty slick setup

 

[bike-maker]

Guess I posted some pictures prematurely^^

So the Superduty hitch uses 8 bolts instead of six, none of which lined up particularly well on my frame. And there were a bunch of shims involved in using those bolts. Didn’t seem sturdy enough to me.

The outside of the New hitch was 1/4” wider than the outside of my frame rails. Cut up some 1/8” spacers out of plate to go between the outside of the frame rails and 2 big chunks of 1/4” plate that span from the frame rails down to the hitch. Then I spent more $ on grade 8 1/2” bolts than I spent on the hitch.Plenty o’ beef.

Since I now had big flat pieces of plate to work with, I set out to reinforce the stock rear bumper. The camper ties down to the ends of the bumper, and when you tighten the turnbuckles on the camper, you could watch them tweak the hell out of the rear bumper. So I took a couple cutoffs of pallet racking and tied the camper tie downs back into the hitch.

So my rear bumper is now super stout - same scenario as the big burly aftermarket bumpers - it could take a pretty serious hit, but if anything were to hit the bumper hard enough to tweak anything; my frame rails are now the weak link.

Then I was trying to load something in the back of my truck that I had no business trying to load by myself. After a couple weeks of recovery for my inflamed scoliosis, I went down to Harbor Freight and picked up an in-bed crane. But that 500 lb weight rating won’t make it very far if you try to just bolt that sucker to the bed floor. So used another chunk of pallet rack and bridged from the hitch up to a plate underneath the bed floor that the crane bolts to. I can just pull out the air impact (that on board air comes in pretty dang handy at times) and zip out 4 bolts for when the camper goes on.

 

[chillman88]

That in bed crane has been on my project list for a while. I'm thinking of taking a different approach though and making a special swinging hitch mount with a couple outriggers. It'll be a while but I think I've got the basics figured out. It would be partially incorporated into a custom bumper too since I don't plan on removing it every time I'm not using it.

 

[th3_d0c]

Question:. Did you use a sway bar in the front at all during the conversion? Im thinking you didn't, since you didn't mention it. Any excessive body roll?