Posted by Paul Cook on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 at 9:52PM :
In Reply to: Re: wc 6x6 vs ffpw with 44x18.5x16.1 D. Higgins? posted by lockers&terra tires available? on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 at 6:39PM :
It is refreshing to relive that intense focus I had many years ago when I was young. I would get an idea and couldn't get past it. Don't lose that. You'll be old soon enough.
We old timers know that a "Bogie" rear suspension is a single assembly and the distance between the rear axles can only be changed with extensive fabrication and substitution of parts. For example, we could change this distance by lengthening the various torque rods. This involves cutting and welding them and could require the work to be done by a professional. After all, the torque rods are the only parts that transmit the effort at the axles to the frame. Then we'd have to find new springs of the right length to span the newly relocated axles. If we wanted to have wider axles to allow the use of wider tires, we would have to find axles that work on a "bogie" suspension. Their axle housings are different since the axles are not fastened to the springs. It would be more affordable and much quicker to just transplant the whole "bogie" suspension from a deuce-and-a-half. This would require extensive reinforcement of the WC-62/63 frame - particularly if you have removed the original bogie suspension to make the change.
Thank your lucky stars that you have a lot of years ahead of you to do all this unnecessary modification to convert a less than satisfactory rear axle set up into the equivalent readily available and low cost tandem axle set up. We old timers would just start with a deuce-and-a-half. They are great off road. Then we could spend our time worrying about tires since they have 20-inch tires to start with. And we can run duals or super singles.
PS The transfer case is locked when it is engaged. Standard lockers for the Power Wagon and M-37 series are available.
PPS Most of us feel it is more courteous to use our names on the Forum.
PPPS I'm in Kempner, 280 miles north of Corpus Christi.
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