Hey yall, Im looking to do a 1 ton swap on my 96 1500. i know all the swap details and what it entails. my questions are with the differences between the years of the axles. the Yukon gear website shows the d60 from 94-98, 99 only, and 00-02. the only difference i see between them is the 00-02 is a 32 spline vs the 94-98 and the 99 only are 30 spline. Ive been looking up and down the internet for the differences between these year sets and have found nothing. aside from spline count, what other differences are there? should i go for any particular axle year?
The front axles that are available to me are a 99 d60 front for $500 off craigslist, or a 95 d60 front for $240 from my local junk yard
The rear axles that are available to me are a 01 d70 (disk brakes) for $500 off craigslist (same guy with the 99 d60), a 95 d70 (drums) for $180 from the same junkyard truck, and a 98 d70 (drums) for $350 off a different craigslist guy

Ill be doing full rebuilds with these (gears, lockers, chromo shafts, etc). what do yall recommend i go with? what differences are there between these separate years? is a certain year more desirable than the others?

 

The years of the dana 60's might have a different CAD.. central axle disconnect. I don't know if the older ones had a vacuum disconnect. You can always eliminate that.
I would make sure the chromoly axle shafts are easy to find for those years as well... When I did my 60 swap front end, I bought RCV's, and had to have them custom made because of the two piece drive shaft where the CAD is.

The dana 70, you can pick up an aftermarket disk kit for around $300 that comes with new pads and rotors, etc... Easy install with just a bit of welding. That might be a way to get him down on price, or something to consider

 

I believe the CAD is the same for all the 2nd gen axles. I've already swapped over to the posi lock cable actuator on my current d44 and it will transfer to the d60. The only shafts i haven't found for the d60 is the CAD side shaft from the carrier to the CAD unit. I'm only seeing OEM shafts on ebay and such. As far as the d70 brakes go. I was planning on a disk swap if I were to pick up a drum axle.

I've been digging even more and it seems that aside from spline count, the only differences between the 94-99 and 00-02 axles are the knuckles, the location of which the ball joint is pressed, brake rotor size and potentially the caliper size.

I might just go with the junkyard axles for price, they are the same year and the internals will be replaced anyway.

The biggest reason I want a dodge dana 60 is for the coil and control arm brackets and i want the axle to be a direct bolt on. You can't find them aftermarket and have to be fabed up. Also the cad system is nice since the truck is a daily, otherwise I'd do a cad delete with a solid shaft.

I can't think of any other differedifferences but if yall know of some more, please do share!

 

I think the differences were in the control arm mounts, and steering knuckles. The went to dual piston front calipers in I think, 2000...... and the taper for the tie rod ends changed over the years as well. May have used different u-joints on the driveshaft too..... All in all, I would expect that anything from 94-02 could be convinced to work.

 

Goin back to the junkyard now for those 95 axles, wish me luck yall

 

Personally, I'd opt for a 00-02 Dana 70 rear, as it comes with factory disc brakes. Drum brakes were the norm for the earlier years. I swapped a 00-02 Dana 60 rear with factory disc brakes into my '96 Ram 2500 4x4 and had no issues. No master cylinder change was needed. I did use a '96 ABS sensor in the rear so that it plugged into the existing harness, as the later model sensor had a different connector. I also noticed that the late model Dana 60 I had used 30 spline axles, not 32 like I've seen documented. Dana 70 should use 35 spline axles and several of them come with a Power Lock unit.