I am rebuilding my '83 F-150. I am going to swap in Dana 60's but i was wondering if I should go with Full floater or semi float. I am not sure what the difference is. Any help would be appreciated

Thanks,

John

If you are swapping in front and rear Dana 60's, go with a full floater.  They are stronger and the axle shafts are easier to change out.  If your front is a 5 lug D60, then I would go with the semi floating rear D60 so you don't have to do the 8 lug conversion on the front axle.  BTW-the semi floating rear D60 is called a light duty D60.  It actually has a D60 case and housing, but uses D44 axle shafts.  If you wanted the light duty D60 to be as strong as a full floater then you would have to upgrade to Moser/Warn D44 shafts for your rear light duty D60. 

I would still try to get the full floaters though as light duty D60's are getting pretty hard to find.  Believe me I've looked.  I wanted one for my Scout.

Scoutnut 

I would go with the full float axles. 

the full float axles support the weight of the vehicle on the axle housing with a hub assembly.  the semi float axles support the vehicle weight on the axle shaft.  so with a full float axle, the axle shaft only transfers the torque from the dif. to the wheel.  in a semi float, the axle shaft transfers the torque, but also has to support the vehicle, which puts the shaft under more stress.

if you were to break a shaft with a semi float axle, the wheel and tire would come off.  with a full float axle, if you break a shaft, you can just remove the shaft, and the wheel stays in place, and you are able to get back home to make repairs.

Regarding breaking a semi floating axle.  What you said may be true of any GM C-clip style axle or for that matter nearly any semi floating axle.  However if you look at the D44, the axle flange has a hole in it so you can unbolt a retainer piece from the housing.  This retainer holds the axle in place.  The only way that the wheel would break off would be if it was right at the flange.  Generally axles break near the splines or at a place where the shaft necks down, not at the flange. 

If he happened to have a light duty D60, that wouldn't be a bad thing.  He would just need to upgrade the regular D44 shafts to Moser/Warn shafts to give the entire axle the strength of a factory D60 (minus the fact that the weight is on the shaft).  However, I again agree that if he hasn't bought an axle, then he should definitely seek out a full floater.  Try to go with a high spline count.  It doesn't take much to pull an axle shaft from a full floating axle.

Scoutnut