i am looking to swap axles from a 2003 ram 2500 into a 2003 dakota, i was wondering what axles come with the ram 2500 and how wide i have spent a couple hours now looking on google and i cant find what axles they have in any of the spec sheets, would really appreciate some help

 

you are going to have 2 different bolt patterns... thats what keeps me away from an SFA. and i would think it will be wider than your rear... ram is wider than dakota... i think??

 

but i ment swap both

 

oh... well then thats a different story... i would like to see that... the wide stance and HD wheels would look cool...

 

I do not have width specs, but the front is an AAM 9.25 and the rear would be an AAM 10.25 if it was a gasser and 11.25 if it is out of a diesel. AAM is American Axel Manufacturing Company.

 

BIG ones with 8 lugs.

 

are the aam axles fairly good quality?

 

any thoughts on putting dana 70/80 into my truck, good bad expeirences with them?

 

AAM seem ok, I don't really have much experience with them though. I gather there are not a lot of aftermarket accessories yet (lockers, hubs, ujoints...) If you want tough and cheep go dana 60 king pin front out of an 80s ford and a 14-bold out of the same vintage chevy. old school 8-lug patern and CRAZY tough and LOTS of parts available. You do realize you'll have to custom build a linkage suspension or fab leaves for the front. That Dak has a rack right? which means you'll have to put a recriprocating ball steering set up in it. Not easy stuff. But off road people do it all the time. There is a guy here by me that has an early 2000s dakota on one ton gear. Honestly, it looks super-gnar. I say go for it.

 

Dana 60s would have cheaper and more available parts. The AAM axels do have huge parts in them. The u-joints at the wheel are bigger than any d-60s. The rear axel comes with disc brakes, an advantage over most d-60s. The front does not have the center axel disconnect like the d-60 out of 94-02 Ram 25-3500. This makes the inner axel one piece and stronger and eliminates a failure prone part. The down side is that the front driveshaft always turns. There is a kit out there to put locking hubs on, but it has an extensive parts list and costs $2k. Gears and lockers are more pricey than the d-60s. I guess it would all come down to which mods are more economical to get where you want it to be.