[Stephen]

I guess we'll never know. The buyer left about an hour ago with his new-to-him bigass Dodge van.

Here's Doug. Be sure to wave if you see him out there.

'Bye, van

We haven't given up on a camper van plan and we still have our Westy, but our next one might not be a Dodge. Stay tuned, just in case.

Thanks for reading along.

 

[Stephen]

I can't imagine them designing the rear axle so it would have to be removed in order for the brake drum to be removed, could just be slightly rusted onto the axle and looks like it is one piece, but I could be wrong.

Could be possible that the replacement rear axle is a different year with different sized lugs and rims, or maybe the replacement rear axle calls for different sized lugs and rims altogether, but I have no idea.

Just to follow up on this with some different pix, the replacement (Dana #2) looks like every other full floater I've seen. Once the wheel is off you can slip the brake drum off since there is nothing holding the drum onto the drum.

The axle on the van (Dana #1) has the axle flange outside the face of the brake drum so there is no way to remove the drum without removing the axle, from what I was able to determine.

Dana #1 on the van. Note the obvious flange blocking the movement of the drum toward the outside.

Dana #2 replacement axle. This brake drum slipped off and on several times, as did the other one on this axle. Nothing to it, but there's no such flange in the way.

Let me stress that I never got any deeper into any Dana axle so I do not KNOW the intricacies but it sure looks that way to me.

I have pix of the underhood stickers from both vans and I believe one states 6500# for the axle while the other states #5500, but I found nothing in the Dana literature to explain this obvious visual difference between the two.

 

[Stephen]

Correction: Dana #2 is rated at 5500# (last line in the left column) as I stated above...

...but Dana #1 on the van was actually 6200#.

 

[Laser86]

Just to follow up on this with some different pix, the replacement (Dana #2) looks like every other full floater I've seen. Once the wheel is off you can slip the brake drum off since there is nothing holding the drum onto the drum.

The axle on the van (Dana #1) has the axle flange outside the face of the brake drum so there is no way to remove the drum without removing the axle, from what I was able to determine.

Dana #1 on the van. Note the obvious flange blocking the movement of the drum toward the outside.
View attachment 86363


Dana #2 replacement axle. This brake drum slipped off and on several times, as did the other one on this axle. Nothing to it, but there's no such flange in the way.
View attachment 86364

Let me stress that I never got any deeper into any Dana axle so I do not KNOW the intricacies but it sure looks that way to me.

I have pix of the underhood stickers from both vans and I believe one states 6500# for the axle while the other states #5500, but I found nothing in the Dana literature to explain this obvious visual difference between the two.

Sure does look like the flange needs to be removed to remove the brake drum on axle #1.

One thing for sure, these vans are definitely going to be harder and harder to keep on the road as time goes by, especially for us Northerners as replacement body and trim parts become rarer and rarer at the bone yards.

 

[Stephen]

Plenty of them in yards down here, depending on what you're looking for. At least for now, but I'm sure there will be fewer as time passes.

That happened to Vanagons. Used to see them all the time in yards but not anymore.

 

[68RT]

Plenty of them in yards down here, depending on what you're looking for. At least for now, but I'm sure there will be fewer as time passes.

That happened to Vanagons. Used to see them all the time in yards but not anymore.

Anything stays in the yard as long as the market demands parts. Once demand drops, ROI says to scrap them.