Dodge I-Beam Question

[sandmountainslim]

Hi everyone,

Total newbie and mostly ignorant.

My question concerns the use of I-Beam suspension on Chrysler Products.

I recently acquired two old front axles and the first I found to be from a 34 Ford, the second I have been TOLD is from a Dodge of some sort. It is a standard I-Beam with the small pattern five lug wheel pattern. The flat spot where the leaf springs mount has a five hole pattern which looks like the "5" on a dice. I have been told by some people that Dodge used mainly tube axles before going to independent front suspension so what could this possibly have been under?

Was there a time period where Dodge cars and pickups used I-Beams? If so what years would this have been? Thanks for any help and good to be on the forum.

William Potter

[Rusty_OToole]

The Ford axle is easy to identify, they had one long spring that went across the car, parallel to the axle. So the axle did not have spring pads.

Chrysler products used mostly I beam axles with 2 parallel leaf springs. In the early 30s they made some tubular axles. In 1934 or 35 they started using IFS but continued the straight axles under some of the cheaper Plymouths and Dodges. I think 1938 was the last year for a straight axle car and these were I beams.

All Chrysler Airflows used straight axles. So they were in the odd position of making their cheapest cars and their most expensive cars with solid axles while their medium priced cars had IFS.

I don't know exactly which models used the tubular axles but I think they were used for only a few years.

Dodge Plymouth and Fargo pickup trucks used an I beam straight axle until 1971.

Chrysler products had the same 5 bolt pattern as a Ford, in fact the wheels will interchange.

But Chrysler had a couple of unusual features. They held the wheels on with bolts that screwed into the hub. To help in lining up the wheel, they had a tapered pin between 2 of the bolt holes that lined up with holes in the wheel. Also the left side of the car had left hand thread wheel bolts.

Other cars that used the same wheel bolt pattern, besides Ford Plymouth Dodge DeSoto and Chrysler, were Hudson and Studebaker.

So if the same wheel fits both axles that would help narrow it down.

[sandmountainslim]

Informative answer and thank you much.

The wheels that fit the axle are the same as the five bolt pattern on a '66 Mustang, I tried the Mustang wheels and they work. The one thing that stands out as unusual to me about the axle is the hubs stick out further than normal, when I got it someone had put Dodge half-moon hubcaps on it and had to cut a whole in the center of the hubcap for the hub to stick thru, I tried it with several other hubcaps I own with the same problem, the hub sticks out about an inch or inch and half past any hubcap I have found. This leads me to believe that perhaps the original wheels were similar to the Model A wire wheels in which the center was made different than modern wheels? I can think of no other reason for the hub to stick out so far. Correct me if I am wrong on this notion.

Wp

[sandmountainslim]

I wish they had put some type serial number on the axles to make it easier to identify.

Wp

[sandmountainslim]

Here is a pic taken when I got it. You can clearly see the hubs sticking thru the hubcaps.

Wp