I am going to go swap my rear SRW axle for a buddies DRW axle.

How hard is the complete axle swap?
Did you undo the u-joint or does the yoke slide out of the rear end?
We plan on removing the entire rear/wheels/calipers and all. Are there disconnects for the brake lines and e-brake cable?
Any helpful hints?


TIA

 

Hey Chris...I sent you an PM.

As I said I wouldn't do another SRW to DRW swap again. Just not worth it. Plus my truck weighs 9400# empty and with a GVW of 9000# I'm illegal BEFORE I hook up my gooseneck, or add misc. equipment to the truck. Yes - its physically almost the same to a DRW (in my case I think stronger as I have air bags and G rated 19.5 tires) but according to the LAW Mr. DOT man goes by what the white sticker says inside your door jam.

I now seriously regret doing my conversion. I should have just purchased a DRW!!!

 

We swapped the entire axles. There has been much debate about the ability to swap the hubs. One account describes the axle housing as having different lengths so we went with the sure fit swap.
Technically it wasn't that hard, physically it was a bear! There were a few things that we had to learn along the way. Getting the 'hub-centric' wheels off turned out to be the physically hardest part. Figuring out the how to remove the e-brake cables was one of the things the service manual didn't outline very well.
I left home at about 6 am Monday morning and drove the 7 hours down to Justin's for the swap. We started at about 1:30 and finished tearing both trucks down and getting mine back together for the ride home just after midnight. I had to leave Justin and his buddies to finish putting his back together today.
I am very happy with the swap. It was harder to do than either of us thought it would be, some things just beat us up...

 

me and a friend of mine converted my 3500 to single axle awhile back and so far i am happy with it i do notice more body roll now but i am running 315s and i love only having to buy 4 tires

 

Yep, that is the next purchase, 6 tires... I wonder what the best tires are... I guess that is another thread.