I have an axle under my old truck with 5.29. My new truck a SAS 3rd gen has stock axle under it. My question is would is be easier to just swap the diffs or the whole axle. One thing I noticed is the axle with the gears has no tabs for my ebrake cable. Kind of a bummer as I don't have a welder to remedy that. Would it be super hard to just swap the diff?

 

The front axle I'm swapping because I just rebuilt the other one. So this is only concerning the rear.

 

It would be way easier to only swap over the 3rd member/diff/pumpkin. The fact you'd have to retrofit e-brake mounting to the other axle makes it even more in your favor to swap only the 3rd member. Make sure both front and rear diffs use the same ratio ring/pinion.

 

Yeah, both axles under my old truck are 5.29. I'm swapping the whole front since I don't even have 100 miles on the steering knuckle rebuild. When I swap the diff do I just need to slide the axle Shafts out, then unbolt the diff and pull it out? Can you leave the axle shafts in?

 

You can't leave the axle shafts in, they must slide out about a foot because they engage into the differential. Don't leave them resting on the axle seal, you'll damage the seal, prop them up or remove them entirely. Pull the 3rd out, clean the gasket surface, buy a new gasket or use RTV for gear oil. I've heard good results with either option. Plop in the new third, new gear oil, slide in the axles, bleed the brakes.

 

Perfect. What I thought. Thanks. I know what my Sunday looks like now.