Strange Engineering Reinvents The Dana 60 Part 1

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Over the years, getting the right heavy-duty rear end for a project car simply meant junkyard scrounging. And plenty of it. You had to unearth the right rear end for the right car. Now, it’s no secret that those GM passenger car 12 bolts, Ford 9-inch rears (with the appropriately tough “N” series pumpkin), and Dana 60’s were fitted to only a select few automobiles (and in some cases, a select few light trucks). They were scarce then. The good ones that bolted right in have been gone for decades. If you do find an appropriate piece today, you’re probably in for a ton of work and expense, due to age, abuse, inappropriate applications and so on.

So what’s an enthusiast to do? It’s actually incredibly easy right at the moment. As it turns out, Strange Engineering (along with at least one other) offers a full range of heavy duty, bolt-in rear end assemblies for a large number of popular applications. The brute that was offered by Detroit has to be the Dana 60. Sure in highly modified race form you can now build a better rear than a Dana, but for many applications, it’s still difficult to beat. Here’s why:

Dana 60’s are equipped with a huge 9-3/4-inch diameter ring gear and when fitted with a contemporary positraction setup (there are several, including Detroit Lockers), the axle splines increase to a hefty 35. The pinion is a large 1-5/8-inch diameter affair (29-spline) that can be setup to accept massive Spicer 1350-series universal joints. Gear ratio choices prove plentiful too, ranging from 3.31:1 all the way up to 7.17:1. As you can see, the Dana 60 has always been the bully of the boulevard when it came to rear end housings. Spot one under a Nova and you can be rather certain there’s serious heat under the hood.

But that’s not the end of it. Strange Engineering’s Dana 60 (dubbed the “S60”) isn’t exactly a piece-by-piece clone of the original. Instead, its jam packed with interesting technology, much of garnered from lessons learned in the drag racing trade. Essentially the Strange Engineering team took the stock Dana 60 and filled with a full compliment of modern features. For an inside look at the basic housing, check out the accompanying slide show.

In this photo, we see that Strange Engineering came up with the idea of actually improving upon the vintage Dana 60. Their version is dubbed the “S-60”, and it’s full of neat tricks and rear end innovation. As pointed out elsewhere, it’s available in any number of configurations from a bare housing without ends and brackets to a bolt in housing (as shown here) all the way up to a complete rear axle assembly.

Next issue, we’ll conclude our look at Strange Engineering’s Dana 60 housings. Watch for it!


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The Strange S60 center section is cast from premium nodular iron, and so are the large bearing caps. More in the next photos:

Overall, the S60 case is thicker than a standard Dana 60.

With a conventional Dana 60, it’s not uncommon to replace the caps with billet steel models. The reason? To provide more strength.

When stressed (big power, big tires, sticky pavement), the car will attempt to force the carrier right out of the back. The fix isn’t required here. The extra material within the case prevents the carrier from migrating.

Note the hefty Allen-head capscrews included in the mix. This thing isn’t going anywhere. By the way, the caps in the S60 are almost twice as thick as standard Dana 60 pieces.

Strange marks the case along with the caps. They’re numbered so there’s no chance of a mix-up during setup.

In a standard Dana 60, the axle tubes are simply pressed into place and plug welded. The Strange S60, on the other hand has the tubes cleanly rosette welded and then each tube is totally welded to the case. Welding the axle tubes to the case prevents them from rotating under hard use.

There’s more too: In some stock applications, the plug welds will actually weep. The reason is the plug welds aren’t always complete. That isn’t the case here.

The housing ends are similarly welded to the axle tubes. Take notes here: That’s what a proper weld on a housing end looks like.

For the application in this photo, a small bearing GM housing end is used. This allows the use of a stock GM drum brake backing plate.

When using the small bearing GM housing end, the backing plate ID has to be opened up to accommodate the larger bearing, but that’s another story.