K1500 8.25 to 9.25 swap

[Timcook8]

Thanks for the replies. Going to RCVs and looking for the beefiest control arms and steering components.

And want to swap to 8 lug.

 

[Gobistro00]

Doing this swap. Did you take the suspension over also or keep the 6 bolt hubs and control arms? I have a 6" Fabtech lift. Want to swap all of the 1 ton stuff over. Happy to buy aftermarket/performance components. Swapping to RTVs and looking at options for the 1ton arms etc. Curious what you did. Steering upgrades too. Will move to a 40" tire from the 37s also

So its been a couple years since i did this swap, ive used my front lockers 100s of times (not an exaggeration) and its held up pretty well, only signs of wear is drivers side axle seal and it seems to be leaking a bit of diff fluid and its leaking a bit from bottom of case, other than that no cracks or any visual wear on the case, as for suspension im running an rcd 6 inch lift, this weekend i will be going to the junkyard and picking up some forged lower control arms off a k2500, they should be direct bolt on and only diffference is is that stamped lca and forged lca use different ball joints, appearantly forged lca use bigger ball joint, but from my research the lower ball joint should still bolt up to stock knuckle. also i use mevotech ttx ball joints, lower and upper, and these ball joints have about 2 years of aggresive offroading and no sign of boot tears or no slop or play in them, i highly recommend these ball joints,

As for steering, im using mevotech tie rods, and despite them being lower end tie rods they have held up pretty well, they are really worn in after 3 years, BUT!! on a rocky trail i sent the truck a little too hard while having my front arbs engaged and bent my centerlink so bad that my truck was doing the Kachow. Reason why i mention this is because my center link bent and gave out before my tierods did and that says a lot about the good quality of tie rods, but will be upgrading to kryptonite centerlink and tie rods very soon, but im going to purchase a spare set of mevotech tie rods to have as backup, as for steering gear box im using redhead steering and its farily new, (only about 3000 miles on it) and will be doing ram assit very soon,

CV axles: So stock cv axles have held up really well so far, only issue is they have horrible articulation and bind up, this made me get limit straps and really lost a lot of down travel, will be buying those cv axles that have like a slip yoke in the middle for higher articulation, i would buy rcv but its out of budget

Currently my truck is in the body shop getting a fresh coat so i havent driven it in about 3 months, But next thing in my plans is building custom upper control arms and building a bed rack, will be posting updates here soon


my specs:
98 k1500 4.3 ecsb with 6 inch lift and 4;10 gears on 35s