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John R.
Dodge Dakota
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12/14/2003
21:36:46
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 Subject: IFS to Solid Axle and Lifts
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I have a '95 ext cab 4x4 Dakota with a 5.2L. I was just wondering if there are any solid axle to IFS kits available for my truck. If there are not any, does anyone have information on what type of axles work and how to go about doing it. Also I am curious about lift kits for my truck. The difficulty of the task doesn't really matter I have worked on vehicles all my life. Any information is helpful thanks.
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mondtster
Dodge Dakota
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12/14/2003
23:56:22
|  RE: IFS to Solid Axle and Lifts
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As far as I know there aren't any kits to do a straight axle conversion. It would have to be a custom setup.
However, the common setup for straight axles seems to be to use a set of axles from a late '70's ford f150 or bronco. I will actually be doing a swap with these axles this coming spring on my '93. Most of the stuff will work off the ford (I bought a complete donor vehicle) but there will be some custom fabrication and some engineering needed to make the suspension work correctly.
The bad part of doing a swap like this is that there are many tools needed to complete such a task that the average home mechanic doesn't have. Therefore just buying tools for the job can get expensive. Also there is the fact that whoever does the swap must know exactly how the suspension is supposed to operate and also have some idea on how to properly engineer the suspension so that it will work correctly when it is installed on the dodge after it is unbolted and cut off of the ford frame. You can't just stick the bracket on the frame and expect that the suspension is going to be the same as the old truck was, it is going to take some fine tuning especially in the steering department.
Another thing to consider is cost. A straight axle swap is not going to be cheap by any means. I got extremely lucky when a friend of mine called me and said he had a friend who would sell me a complete non running f150 for $300. A lot of places want $300 for the front axle alone and you would still want to get the rear axle and on top of that you would want the brackets off the frame, and the radius arms, etc. The list goes on and unless you can get a complete package the price can get pretty extreme. I still plan to have about $2k invested just to get the axles under my truck not including regearing and installing LSD in them.
The only reason why I am even considering the straight axle swap to be viable is because the IFS in my particular truck is junk. the previous owner bent a bunch of the stuff up just enough that I couldn't tell it was bent but I can't ever get it aligned correctly. Also there is the fact that it has almost 200k miles on it and everything is worn out. I have wanted to put a straight axle under it almost since I got it but always felt it was cost prohibitive and until I found the donor truck for a reasonable price I was looking for a different truck that already had a straight axle in it.
The big problem is that chrysler didn't intend for the dakota to be an off road machine. They intended it to be a transporter on paved surfaces and possibly a mild off road excursion every now and then. That is why they had the IFS on it and that is also why it wasn't as beefy as the other straight axle trucks were.
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Justin
Dodge Dakota
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12/21/2003
19:54:11
| RE: IFS to Solid Axle and Lifts
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I was riding yalls reply and im getting ready like in the next few days to do a solid axle swap on my 1987 Dodge Dakota 3.9 Gen 1. I'm going with an old Jeep Waganeer axle with a Dana 44. Of course i have some friends that said if I get the stuff they will do it all for me. I didnt know if anyone else has done a solid axle swap on a Dakota let alone a Gen 1.
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