Here's what the old wheel looks like in the fender.
Here's what the old wheel looks like in the fender.
And our new front axle, from a 2003 Isuzu NPR. 6 lug on 8.75 circle... 22.5" Rims and 245/75R22.5 tires from a Hino. Hey, they are the same overall size.
Not all things go according to plan. The odd orientation of the front springs and lack of room in front for the steering box makes it so that I decided to take a step back to the old axle.
Here you can see the taper of the frame rails as they go forward. It's ~12° or so. It also makes putting in a new front axle a royal pain. Initially I figured to put the new springs in from the Isuzu, and make custom brackets to hold them. But that got foiled when we realized how long the Isuzu units were... They would have stuck out through the front sheetmetal.
Luckily the front axle I gave away was still available. Got up to Acton on a Sunday and dragged it back. So how does one reinstall a heavy (~650#) front spring? With lots of anti-gravity devices.
Custom Ubolts from Stengel Bros and I can't say enough good things about them. Grade 8 made to my dimentions, $8.08 each, plus shipping, and they came in 5 days.
Next trick would be to get a custom spring made so it doesn't ride like a 10 ton dump truck. We'll see how it rides first though.
29-Jan. It would be best to have the front lug pattern match the rear. But until that all comes around, we are going with some nice modern tubeless radials up front. Accuride P/N 27403 adapts the DT front axle (10 lug Budd 11.25" botl circle, 8.72" center hole) to a 22.5 rim like on the rear. Got them from Wheels Now in WI. Here's the test fit shot before I paid to have the tires mounted and balanced.
Do you have something we need for the restoration? Check out the ForSale-Trade-Wanted page!