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2000 Ford F-550 Build

Ok, update: I logged 1350 miles this past weekend. What a tiring event. Drove from Meridian, ID to Redding after work Friday. Got in after midnight. Originally I was doing this trip solo, so I was gonna sleep in the back but last minute my sister and dad wanted to tag along to help me move my brothers stuff from CA to ID. So my dad got a hotel, and we grabbed 6 hours of sleep or so.

Next morning we wake up, meet up with the guy to get my axles. Not very talkative and it was quick. He said 8-9 am. I asked for 8 before I left Idaho. He said ok. Go to show up at 8 and he says I’m at the dealership....so we wait till 8:30. Looking back I wish I got more info but I was in a hurry and behind schedule. It’s an 05-06 from what I know. I texted him later asking for a vin to get GAWR specs and I got the silent treatment. I hope this shit wasn’t stolen.

He claimed he bought it cheap to make a crawler hauler and would try to get around the bullshit 450/550 law but couldn’t so parting it out was his best option.

After the axles were loaded we headed from Redding to the beautiful town of Stockton. So we run 200 miles south and meet up with my brother. He just had a hernia and had surgery 4 days prior. He was useless for loading shit up. He was in pain....and that’s where my sister and dad came in. We load up his stuff and then start the trek back to Idaho. We sat in traffic from Stockton to Sacramento which killed more time. In the end it was 1350 miles in 34 hours along with loading axles, loading up a truck and moving shit.

I drove almost all of it. My dad drove 10 miles Friday night for me to rest a tad. He’s not a car guy and when I saw him white knuckling this massive truck I woke the fuck up to finish the drive.

Saturday night after getting to winnemucca I let my sister drive about 120 miles. I was tired as fuck. My sister is 20 and a great driver for having very little experience off road and driving big shit but she does well. The one issue is she is fearless. When she took my brothers 1 ton JK offroad she is in a high rollover situation and I’m scared for her, she’s completely calm. Terrifyingly calm, like you don’t know you can hurt yourself...well the same thing happened. I told her don’t go over 75, I replaced the rear tires and they are fresh and have an 87 mph speed rating.
The fronts are old “dawg pound” tires, 75 mph rating and old....I don’t trust the 11 year old child who made those tires in China 6 years ago. Also, don’t go over 30 lbs of boost.

Within minutes she’s doing 80 at like 2800 rpm and at 30 lbs of boost continuing to accelerate.

Well either way, her lack of fear will come back to bite someone one day....but I hope she calms down a tad before that happens. I took a nap and finished out the last 130 miles.

So now I have a goal set for myself. Get these axles and the aux trans in before end of summer.

Driving at 72-73 mph when basically unloaded and at 2500-2600 rpm is fucking painful. When I’m loaded at 19k plus I don’t mind the constant rpm but unloaded I wanted to be doing 80 mph or more. That’s where the aux trans comes in, I still need to find yokes and a seal housing for the input.

Going this route with the F550 front end fully complete is the way to go. I’m stoked on it. Has calipers, rotors, 100% complete. It’s got stiffer springs and sway bar (I’m guessing) so I don’t have to go out and find obscure F550 stuff. It’s got everything possible thing I need.

My only concern is the rear axle. The tag is gone so I don’t know if it’s an S110 or S130. I’m concerned if the R&P is an S110 (I think it’s smaller then the S130) as is the S130 is 2in smaller then the S135. I’m also concerned about the housing, I already cracked the S135, I don’t wanna crack another one but I’m hoping these housings are a better design and that’s what makes it better even though they are smaller
 
YotaAtieToo said:
Saw burnt shit and knew you were in CA :laughing::(

I'm sure it sucks to feel like you're going down with a 14.5 vs 12.5 ring gear. But I've been around quite a few of those F4/550s and the only one I ever heard of having issues was a 00 F450 loaded to 16k lbs 100% of the time and the D80 wasn't happy.

Lots of newer ones running 20-26k all the time. Googe says ram uses the 110 in 4/5500s also.

Is the 110 the late model Eaton of tomorrow? :laughing:
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Yep, definitely in Ca lol.

Good to know on the axles.

CDA 455 II what parts are you looking for? YotaAtieToo has first dibs. He reached out first.
 
To figure out if it's a S110 or S130, pull an axle shaft and count the splines (34 for the S110 and 36 for the S130).
 
GLTHFJ60 said:
From the above copied forum posts, the older S135 is just a different design. Center section with tubes somewhat integrated, vs an entire fabricated housing.

Who knows if you'll crack a S110 housing 06h3 , but you probably won't crack a S130 housing given the same weight. Just be careful if you go out to buy one. I thought I was ordering a S110 4.30 diff (that's how it was listed), and had them send the axle shafts just in case. Glad I did, because it's a S130 diff.

The good thing is that if you do decide to upgrade the rear end, you should be able to put the older S135 8 lug hubs on it without issue. If not, then you'll have to find a S110 8 lug hub set to match your current wheels.
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More detail on this, please... is there an 8 on 6.5" (or 8 on 170) version of the hubs for the S series?
 
Grendel said:
I don't think so. The hub itself is pretty large.
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The hub snout, iirc, is about 5.2". If you have the machining ability, it can probably be taken down to 5.120" to fit through most aftermarket 8x6.5" wheels. Then machine the hubs some more for 8x6.5" and maybe run a front rotor.

There was a thread on the old site where somebody took the chevy 10-lug D80 hubs and plugged/remachined for 8x6.5".

EDIT: The "1-ton" D80 and aam1150 don't have the huge hub bearings (and load capacity) found on the class 4-5 diffs.
 
u2slow said:
The hub snout, iirc, is about 5.2". If you have the machining ability, it can probably be taken down to 5.120" to fit through most aftermarket 8x6.5" wheels. Then machine the hubs some more for 8x6.5" and maybe run a front rotor.

There was a thread on the old site where somebody took the chevy 10-lug D80 hubs and plugged/remachined for 8x6.5".

EDIT: The "1-ton" D80 and aam1150 don't have the huge hub bearings (and load capacity) found on the class 4-5 diffs.
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You sure you aren't thinking of the old 3500hd and F-superduty 10x7 D80?
 
I was referencing the F450 shaft 47852-1; 37-spline... so I assume D80.
 
Well the 4wd swap has started. All I can say is rivets suck. Took me 8 hours (granted, I had 2 runs to HF) to cut 28 rivet heads off, then air hammer/plasma cut out 14. Still have 14 to go....

I’m getting faster as I go along so it shouldn’t take as long for the next 14 but man, that sucked!!

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Sorry man, I would have just bought new. They're not that spendy. Same with the spring buckets.
 
I couldn’t find them online. What do they run? Lol even throwing a couple hundred bucks into the brackets I still feel for both axles, suspension, steering, etc. I still feel it would have been an ok purchase price wise.
 
Hell, I probably have spent more money on consumables for the Plasma cutter, grinding disks and a new air hammer rather then buying new brackets :laughing:
 
06h3 said:
I couldn’t find them online. What do they run? Lol even throwing a couple hundred bucks into the brackets I still feel for both axles, suspension, steering, etc. I still feel it would have been an ok purchase price wise.
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I've had good luck here:


I bought all of the brackets I needed to convert a frame from leaves to coils from them, I think I was about 425 into both coil buckets and radius arm mounts
 
If you've ever used a swinging dick air hammer, it's the way to go. Takes like 5 seconds to cut the head off and knock the shank out.

I don't own one, and probably couldn't justify it for one project either.
 
I do want the engine bushings from that frame cut, if you're not using them.
 
bigger air hammer needed
actually a little one will cut rivets fairly well with a real sharp angled chisel, they just ain't durable at all when they're sharpened to a real fine point

if you ain't got a torch to wash them off nicely (fuck plasma for washing rivets off)
you should just hit them with a 1/4" drill bit, then knock the heads off with the air hammer
 
Yeah, rivets suck on removal. That was worse part of bobbing my 5ton with hours spent trying everything from grinding flush, cutting an X like you have, chisel head off etc. In the end torch to melt head off and then straight to air hammer with punch while still red hot on end seemed to be the quickest if you have someone to swap you the tools quickly so your not constantly having to relight torch and look for hammer etc.
 
350TacoZilla said:
Yeah, rivets suck on removal. That was worse part of bobbing my 5ton with hours spent trying everything from grinding flush, cutting an X like you have, chisel head off etc. In the end torch to melt head off and then straight to air hammer with punch while still red hot on end seemed to be the quickest if you have someone to swap you the tools quickly so your not constantly having to relight torch and look for hammer etc.
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You ha e 2 hands don't you? :flipoff2:
 
The problem is I didn’t plan for it. I just went to work then said ok, I’ll go to HF now and grab an air hammer. Their new “chief” one seems good. They were out of the big chief one, just the middle sized one was in stock so that’s what I bought.
 
I measured the rear axle....I am not sure if it was in this thread or the S110/130 thread but I’ll put it here. so the S135 is 5in tall and 4.25 or 4.5 (can’t remember) wide. The S110/130 is 4.25/4.5 tall and 4.25/4.5 wide.

So basically the S135 has the same width as the S110/130 but the S135 is slightly taller.

S135 has 7mm thick tubes and has some weird “special” HSLA steel. Which really isn’t that special in my opinion. It cracked for me and noted it’s been an issue in the past for others.
S110 has 8mm thick tubes, unsure of steel type.
S130 has 10mm thick tubes, unsure of steel type.

I have seen and been told the S135 and S110 are both rated at 13,500 (some are derated for suspension and other crap)

The S130 on the fords is up to 14,706 lbs, I have read that they have been rated up to 16k in different applications, there’s an S14-130 and a S16-130. I’m not sure if it’s the same axle or slightly different housing or bearings or what?


I looked on rock auto and the wheel bearing part #s are all the same for the S135, S110 and S130. I am curious if the S150 used the same wheel bearings. From a strength standpoint I do not think the wheel bearings are the issue. Even the R&P was downgraded quite a bit from the S135 to the S110 and still have the same 13.5k rating. (14.25 to 12.25) from what it seems it’s all housing related.

I ran 15,500 lbs on my S135 and cracked the housing. It’s a hairline crack and have put over 5k miles on it since with no issue but my gut tells me it’s all housing related when it comes to these axle ratings. I bet I wouldn’t have even cracked mine if I unloaded some weight before hitting Boone road at the hammers. That road coming into the lakebed has some nasty bumps and holes since it’s a dirt road but I’m sure one jarring hit cracked it, it was probably fine on the highway.

So what’s the ideal setup in my eyes? An S150 if the wheel bearings are the same as the S135. You get a MASSIVE 14.25in ring gear. You get the thicker housing with the S150. If the wheel bearings are the same the swap would be easy. I noticed the manufacturer doesn’t even weld most of the brackets. They all wrap around a boxed housing and use clamping force to keep stuff in place. Most brackets are welded for about 1in in one spot. So swapping brackets onto an S150 housing would be easy.

Some say you can’t weld to this bullshit “HSLA” steel without special methods but I found a bulletin from ford stating you can mig weld up to 45 seconds on HSLA housings. I’m not sure if it’s 45 seconds total or at one time. Even at 45 seconds total, you have like 5-6 1in beads to make all in different spots. That probably wouldn’t add up to 45 seconds.

Another thought is if you have an S135 housing and your gonna overload it just gusset the spring perch like a little truss. The cracks happen right at the perch where all the weight is.
 
An update:
Got the donor frame rail brackets completely off. Not fun but done. Got the axles off the back of the bed. That was fun. I was convinced if 4 people gently rolled them down the ramps it would work well. It didn’t. Went flying down.

Axle 2 we winched down....much safer.

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I went to the junkyard for some other parts and came home with a new to me passenger fender and front door. The previous owner must have had a blow out or lost a ball joint.
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Got the fender replaced.

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The fender is in near perfect condition, it’s now on, just gotta swap the emblems and goo gone the V10 reminisce off the fender.

The new door isn’t perfect, there’s a small dent but it’s tiny and 1000x better then my current door which is completely fucked.

I’m starting tear down of the front end today to start swapping in the new front axle.

Lastly I found a 1960s bus in the junkyard with what I had hoped to a spicer 7041 so I could grab shifters and 2 Yokes off of it. It wasn’t....it was a spicer 5831. It’s much smaller then the 7041 and that’s probably why I didn’t grab it. So the hunt continues on aux trans parts. I’m told I gotta go to a small farm town and talk to the farmers who have old beat down trucks and they will have parts
 

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As I said in the other thread, I think it goes all the way up to the S175 model.

I also found out we still have RoosterBooster's old IH based 150 axle set up. I have a monkey pulling it out of the way out back axle pile.

I know the thirds swap. I will play with hubs. Ideally, I'd use the 150 housing with the 4.88 third and Ford 10 lug hubs.
 
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Grendel said:
As I said in the other thread, I think it goes all the way up to the S175 model.

I also found out we still have RoosterBooster's old IH based 150 axle set up. I have a monkey pulling it out of the way out back axle pile.

I know the thirds swap. I will play with hubs. Ideally, I'd use the 150 housing with the 4.88 third and Ford 10 lug hubs.
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The S175 housing is intriguing. I’d like to see if the spindles will accept F550 backing plates/brake brackets and brakes.
 
Today was an ok day. Normally when I wrench I have a friend/brother/sister helping. Today I was solo and it was slow going. Got about 8 hours of wrenching minus interruptions, phone calls, etc.

Axle is out!

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Brackets on the frame side are gone.

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Coil buckets are in. Drilled the extra holes but gotta get more hardware.

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Steering box is out, that was a PITA. I started drilling the holes out for the bigger bolts for the 05+ F550 box. They are HUGE! 3/4in bolts.

One hole is drilled out to 5/8, one 9/16 and the other is almost to 3/4in. What a PITA that is too.

Track bar bracket was giving me fits but I’ll get back to that later.

I noticed the steering input is bigger on the 05+ box. Do I need a new steering shaft? I thought most 05+ swaps don’t need a new steering shaft.

Anyways, I’m tired. After a day like today I question why I am 4wd swapping it and why I’m slaving over an old pile but I’m sure tomorrow I’ll have a positive outlook lol
 
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