Id say the difference would be the diff itself. I have and f350, 450, 550. The 350 has a dana 60 the 450 and 550 do not. THey are ford and much bigger. Cant remember the sizes, never had issues with them. BUt the pumpkins on the 450 and 550 are huge compared to the dana 60 and 80 on the back of the 350. And not sure what your looking for in U joints. They are easily found and replaced with many different brands. The best are the non zerked ones. THey are much stronger, and don't wear out near as fast as the greasable ones.

 

Id say the difference would be the diff itself. I have and f350, 450, 550. The 350 has a dana 60 the 450 and 550 do not. THey are ford and much bigger.

The F-450 and F-550 have the Dana 60 up front, as does the F-350.


There is no "Ford" (corporate or Sterling) axle on an F-450 or F-550 in the front or the rear, for any model year.


There is no Dana 60 axle in the rear of any 99 up F-350, no matter whether single rear wheel or dual rear wheel.


For model years 1999 through 2004, the F-450 / F-550 used the same Dana 60 up front as all F-350s.


For model years 2005 through 2016, the F-450 / F-550 used a Dana Super60 up front, but so did some F-350s having dual rear wheels with the Tow Boss package.


The rear axles to F-450 / F-550 trucks were all Dana axles, not Ford. Specifically, Dana 80, Dana 110, Dana 130, Dana 135, and later designations of the Dana 110 design iteration evolved to Dana S14-110 and Dana S16-130. For '17 up, the axles remain Dana, in various ratings of the M300 axle family.


Ford axles are used only in the rear of the F-250 and single rear wheel F-350.


As for U joints, the size of the U joints differs between an F-350 and an F-450 / F-550, where the 450/550 will use larger U joints in the driveline, and this can account for a difference in prop shaft lengths, as the yokes to hold the larger U joints are commensurately larger.


If I understand the original post correctly, this thread is about upgrading from a 2000 F-350 Dana 60 front axle with a leaf spring front suspension .... to a 2008 F-450 Dana Super 60 with a coil spring front suspension that has an entirely different center section casting (which could effect prop shaft length, just as Absolute suggested, even if the axle info wasn't spot on). The additional wrinkle is that the 2008 F-450 axle came from a frame with dropped horns and different steering and swaybar hardware locations than the 2007 F-450 frame that will actually be used to mount the front axle to.


The dilemma boils down to the $135 difference between a shortening an F-350 shaft or buying the F-450 shaft. If it were me, I'd buy the shaft that came with the axle to have on hand until the job is completed, and then sell any parts that didn't get used. The headache of scrambling for another part on a job as complex as an amalgam of three different trucks into one vehicle isn't worth the savings.


The questions are whether or not the F-350 front prop shaft is "as strong" as the F-450 prop shaft. The 2000 F-350 front axle has a maximum rating of 6,000 lbs. (or LESS, depending on options). The same Dana 60 in a 2000 F-550 has the same maximum limitation of 6,000 lbs, despite the F-550 of the same era having 1,000 lbs more tire capacity on the front axle.


On the other hand, the 2008 F-450 front axle has a maximum rating of 7,000 lbs. The same Dana Super 60 in a 2008 F-550 has an even higher maximum rating of 7,500 lbs. So with 1,500 more pounds capacity to motivate, will the front prop shaft be stronger than a propshaft design for a typical front axle rating of 5,600 lbs? Probably. Is it worth cutting each type of prop shaft open to mic the wall thickness of the tubes for comparisons sake? Probably not.


The U joint size can definitely be compared though. The person selling the propshaft can likely measure the width of the crosses / cardans / yokes, and you can compare them with what you have on the F-350 shaft.

 

I completely understand what you mean about selling parts. I have entire vehicles sitting around that I've been meaning to sell (for YEARS) that I haven't gotten to yet, nevermind the brand new items that I bought at a store, realized I didn't need, and never got around to returning. So I completely get it. But seriously, check the U joints.

Speaking of UJoints, if you put a Gear Vendors unit on your frankentruck, you will most definitely be downgrading the rear driveline at the output of the Gear Vendor to an F-250 sized 1350 U-joint, as opposed to the stock F-550 sized 1480 U Joint. Consider calling Gear Vendors and asking them if they still recommend their unit for your truck's GVWR anymore, considering that it is essentially a rescued resurrection of a decades agp out of buisness Norman DeLaycock invention from the mid 1940's for small English automobiles like the MG, Jaguar, and some European Volvos. Will it stand up to a 19,500 GVWR 200" wb long F-550?

I highly recommend researching your plan a bit more. Not by reading the marketing claims on the webpages of GV either. Instead, call real driveline shops that specialize in medium duty trucks, where that is what they do day in and day out. Ask how long GV units live in workaday applications. How many fleets, who would be delighted to save on fuel, run the GV? How many hotshotters and LTL runners have blown them up? What are you planning to use this truck for? How many hills are in the territory you plan to operate in?

Not that any answers to those questions are expected to be returned to this thread. These are just suggestions for you to consider asking yourself.

Unless you already have an fully intact front frame section from an 05-07 model year, you are severely short changing your build by having the axle supplier flame cut the donor frame short of the factory splice. Ford enhanced the front frame section when they transitioned to radius arm located coil springs in the 4x4 trucks. The newer reinforced frame extends the boxed section for another foot past the engine crossmember, and the web of the boxed extension is weld tied to the web of the crossmember.

When Ford introduced the new 2005 frame, Ford mentioned in a press release how the 99-04 front frame section was the initial test bed of the new coil sprung 4x4 front end, and it was found in that testing where the frame needed to be reinforced, and thus Ford made the reinforcements. It always helps to remember that automotive companies don't spend extra money on a platform unless they absolutely have to, especially in areas that a customer cannot see or touch or hear. Something else to think about?

 

Oh yea I hear you about the frankentruck and GV.

The goal of this build is not to increase hauling capacity. This build is happening because of a bad wheel bearing. >

1) brakes on this thing suck. Every day is leg day, at least if it was a manual trans my legs would be even. Over the years ive tried a lot on my trucks but its just not enough.
2) turning radius of a battleship.
3) I have a 9' bed (M105A2 military trailer bed) and a 90 gallon vertical aux tank which takes up 16 inches of the bed so I am a little less than a 8' bed. Due to this bed I need to move the axle back, but because I am currently a PU frame instead of C&C it would either be a hack job to move it back or a hack job to lengthen the frame. Neither are cheap or good ideas. But this has nothing to do with why I am doing this, this point will become apparent later in this post.

So I didnt want to replace the wheel bearing until I figured out how I wanted to upgrade the brakes. Upgrading the existing axle was likely to not have any large effect. Looked into doing a coil spring conversion to get the upgraded F350 brakes up front from 6.0 - later or something to that effect.

So I looked into what would be involved in going leaf to coil to get a better turning radius. The amount of fab work would be a lot and becoming pricey, but while searching around and documenting prices I found the holy grail for this project. I found one of my old business buddies had a yard full of powerstroke stuff (he builds powerstrokes, rips gassers and 6.0s out and drops 7.3s in) is in liquidation mode because he needs more room, the bigger the part the lower the price. Well this is where the 2007 200" WB 2wd frame, complete with basically everything minus cab engine and trans.

I can get that rolling frame for cheaper than going leaf to coil alone. Then I can also get that frame for cheaper than correcting the wheelbase problem with my current setup. turning radius gets improved. Oh and it also upgrades the rear brakes too. I do the math and it allows me to run my aux tank in front of my 9' bed and everything lines up. Due to price its a buy one get one free type of price.

This also cuts the fab work way down. I pull cab, move engine trans tcase over, throw cab back on. No need to do any fab trying to convert from coil to leaf.

now here is the problem. going from 4.10 to 4.88. the 4.30 gears for f450-550 are pretty rare, but not entirely unattainable. but that adds money. a 4.30 dana 110 or 130 center section and/or gears is more than half the price of a gearvendors. After many spreadsheets and hours of research, talking with mechanically inclined people, gearvendors, etc.. the cheaper option was to go gearvendors. The unit is basically good for operation up to 10,000lbs and you dont haul with it. Its strictly an unloaded fuel economy booster. For hauling this particular GV is fine as long as you turn it off. (failure mode is the sprags and when it fails it stays coupled 1:1).... Oh and I didnt pay anywhere near what I should have paid for the GV.

Even though Ive always wanted a GV, (and so does 2 of my friends with 7.3s), Both of them were heartbroken when I told them what I paid for the unit and one of them offered to buy it if I dont use it. So maybe I will run 4.88s and run my usual 800 mile circuit and compare fuel economy. If it doesnt go down then Ill sell the GV and that effectively turns the truck into a proper hauling beast, but with paperwork and legality I wouldnt be hauling (I do NOT like being on the wrong side of the DOT. my last ticket was 7' long and he had to change the paper roll in the middle.)

So all is not lost with this franken build. Im doing this because this is my forever truck and I enjoy doing this kind of work. Right now it looks like a franken truck, but after all of this WB and stuff gets corrected it will turn out looking pretty bad***.

If this wheel bearing wasnt on the way out AND the perfect frame for the perfect price didnt fall in my lap I wouldnt be doing this project... > Not counting sweat equity Id be into this project for around $7000 if nothing goes wrong and I refrain from stuff like "oh the engine is out might as well rebuild it, oh the trans is out might as well drop a BTS in", etc.. The most expensive part of this build is the front axle to go from 2wd to 4x4. Then I get to sell a complete f350 frame and gear which in my area goes like hotcakes. Id probably be sitting on or going to be scrapping the 2wd axle that comes with the frame but who knows, maybe that will sell too. Oh and ill have 2 complete sets of linkages / steering / suspension for the front which my friend already wants those leftovers. (he too hates planning routes that avoids U-turns)

tldr: the GV is optional for this build but for what I paid for it and the rest of these parts I couldnt pass up the deal.

looks like I need to measure those U joints. Does anybody have a 2007 f450/550 and can identify / measure their front prop shaft u joints?

 

Due to an unexpected hiccup I will likely be going ahead and getting the driveshaft along with the axle. And changing which axle ends up being put under the truck.

That hiccup happened because I finally took delivery of the frame. The frame came with a 4.30 rear. I was told it was 4.88. I said I really wanted 4.30 but he didnt have it. Well it just so happens that it was 4.30 with a Truetrac. Im not complaining.

I guess if/when I get the front driveshaft for this build I will report back on the dimensions and related so this thread has some closure. At least I wont need the gearvendors.