Yeah I am leaning towards leaf springs myself. I believe you get more possible articulation from the 4/5 link setups, but are a bit more tricky to fab up. Also in the pic of the across motor mount for the5 link setup, I think that its solid in place, which would suck for any mojor motor work one would want to do. I wouldhate to try a intake manifold swap with that in the way.

 

Leaf sounds the best, thats the way I would go, it's almost the same as the rear suspension, which will make it rule! lol.

 

Any idea if this is even remotely possible on the Gen 3's?

 

i dont know why it wouldnt be you just need to be able to cut and weld i've done some research on the sas since you people's replies i found a good link for some ideas on the gen 2 it has somegood pictures for brackets and shows a chunk of the stuff that needs to be removed http://www.4x4wire.com/feature/99dakota/solidaxleswap/

 

im definitally going to look into this swap....

i want something more workable offroad and this looks like a decent thing to do...i wont be able to fab that stuff myself but i can save money like no tommorrow

and junkyards have tonz of old fords

 

SAS can be expensive. it all depends on who you know. expect to spend around 5k by the time you get everything and hydro steering works best.

 

ya i was wondering what u would do for the steering...

it looks so painless tho...thats the thing on that link it looked so simple to do...

 

everything looks simple


buy a 96-01 ram with a solid front axle. it would be cheaper.

 

ya but those are kinda expensive too....

plus im holding out to see if there will be any diesel option in the daks to come...heard a rumour or 2

but depending how everything goes if i cant find a diesel that i like in around 2-3 years im going to sas

 

I am just thinking about doing something like this if my truck decides to not sell. If I don't sell it. I want to do a v8 swap and a SAS like the one above. i can probably pick up the parts for about 500 bucks (just the axles) How hard would it be to rebuild the axles, and weld them up? I can probably do the welding myself but not sure if I can do it myself. I am not a very good welder but I can do it. How strong does the welds need to be? Probably best to bring the welding to someone else, but how do you do the hub conversion to hold the 8 prong? They did this in the above topic.

I would have a pretty sweet truck if I did this. I am hoping to maybe do this. I can buy a running one for 2k, so that means I can probably get just the axles cheap. Dana 60 and dana 44

I will do the leaf spring not the 3/4 link.