I'm wondering if you have a 5 lug axle with an adapter to turn it into an 8 lug. I'd remove the wheels and see what's underneath. I'd also make sure what lug pattern on the front wheels as well as your spare wheel.

 

What rear axle is in it?

 

Likely a 9.25

 

I didn't have a tool to pop the miniature hub cap thing off on the front, but that plastic piece has 8 faux lugs on it. I'm not sure that means anything though. The van doesn't have a spare. It looks like the mechanism that once held it under the van has been broken. There's just a busted cable hanging down. I'll have to figure that out at some point and might even have to carry 2 spares. Maybe I can mount on on the back door or something.
I'm about to order a bunch of parts and start work on it, I'll dig into it more then.

I found that cheatsheet someone posted here to decode what rearend it is based on the rear cover. That is very handy and I'll use that to see what's under there. My worry is, if this is a conversion and they stuck a different rear end under there, I'll have to figure out what shocks it uses, rear brakes, etc.

 

Going to be fun removing those lug nuts.....

 

Yeah with 8 lugs, If it was a dana 60+ you would see the axle shaft bolts. The 9 1/4 is easy to spot it looks like this.

 

You guys are right it again!




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Yep, that's a semi floating axle. You have adapters on the wheels. I don't know whether I'd keep the duals in back since they are on adapters. Then again, it's lasted this long.....

 

That helps because now I know that I don't have to go hunt down shocks that aren't the OE part number. Thanks for that. As for the adapters, I've thought about removing them. But it has those fiberglass fenders on the back and no telling how they attached those. Might leave holes behind or whatever. So at this point, I think I'll leave them because like you said, they've lasted this long. I'll just need to carry 2 different spare tires.

 

The one ton trucks use a variety of adapter on the front as well, so it can use the same wheels/tires all the way around. If your front is 8 lug as well, (which it should be...) might wanna look into that, just for convenience sake.