Sorry if this question has been brought up before. I am not very active on this forum but I have a question and you can probably guess what it's about

I drive a '96 F150, short bed, 5 speed 4wd 5.0 . I was hit in approximately August by a young woman. Long story short, her car was totaled and I got a check for $2700.

Among all of the conversations I had with the body shop (they did an excellent job) one of them told me that some people replace the IFS front axle with a solid axle. The reason was allegedly because of the inherent difficulties with aligning these trucks once they get enough mileage.

A little backstory might shed some light.

For a long time before the accident my truck was somewhat difficult to drive because of what I thought was loose front wheel bearings. Those checked out at I think 50 ft lbs(or whatever the spec is). The truck would wander in the lane. Then I thought my alignment was off. The shop said it wasn't. Turns out my frame was bent.

I think it was something like 2.6 mm over and 4.6 mm up.

Anywho, I've never heard of anyone putting a solid axle in a street driven truck. A rock crawler is one thing but I'm running 235s! Maybe go up to 31x10.50s for the next set of tires.

thanks

 

Well you'll get plenty of input but me personally I'd do it in a skinny minute, I'd do a straight one even if it wasn't wrecked ,trucks have run them for years and didn't start putting independent one in tell they started selling to grocery getters and moms and pops there weak but ride smoother so they say ill put a 79 f150 against any new truck for ride ,ford still puts them in there 250 why cause there stronger

 

search ford sas conversion. (Solid Axle Swap) you will need 78-79 bronco of f150 dana 44 to use coils up front and same wheels but you may need 4 to 6 inches of lift. i will do the same to my 95 2wd took every thing from a bronco as time allows.

 

Ok, I'm going to buck the trend. I'd rebuild the TTB with quality bushings/balljoints and run it. Also install a camber kit. The caster has to be set with eccentric ball joints and it can be a bit of a pain, but once done correctly it'll drive nicely and won't need any further work for at least a few years unless it's wheeled hard. The design of the TTB actually gives it pretty good terrain following capabilities. The hot ticket for this system is extended radius arms, but I don't know if anybody is producing them anymore.