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Anybody ever swap a K1500 to K2500 8600GVW susp?

11K views 6 replies 2 participants last post by  dhcomp 
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#1 ·
Everything fits except the upper arm, since the 1500 ball joints are smaller, im looking to see if anyone makes an upper ball joint that fits the 1500 arm with the stud size if the 2500. the 2500 ball joint mounts on the arm at an angle and would bind under load when bolted to the 1500 arm, the 1500 joint mounts straight, If anybony could help with this please let me know, thanks, we all know that the 1500 parts tend to be delicate, ive already swapped to the 14 bolt full floater, ive got the big front diff installed, but no luck with the front suspension, please help, thanks, Ryan
 
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#3 ·
It's great to hear of someone else trying this. Everyone is quick to shoot the idea down, but very few have actually done any research. I have all of the parts to convert my Tahoe sitting in my garage, but I haven't had the time to work on it lately. I have been trying to decide how to handle the upper a-arm. So far I have come up with three options; 1) remove and reweld the upper control arm mounts so that the 3/4 ton control arms can be mounted, 2) install a 2500 lift, however this would still require moving the mounts, or 3) having custom a-arms fabbed up. Option 1 seems like the easiest, but I haven't put a lot of time into researching how feasible it will be. Are you currently running the the 9.25 front diff with the 3/4 ton cv joints through the 1/2 ton hubs? Did this present any difficulties? I have test fit parts individually, but I haven't had the time to bolt everything in at once yet.

Jason
 
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#4 ·
Yes, ive got the front diff in and no trouble there, also got the 14 bolt full floater in the rear, noticed a slight power loss from the extra rolling mass, but nothing big worth worrying bout. for the front i used the outer joint from the half ton and inboards and the shafts from the 3/4 ton, after further investigation, it looks as if the 1/2 ton inboard probabally would have bolted to the 3/4 ton differential, same pattern, looks to be same size also, but it never even crossed my mind to check it out before dissasembling my shafts, no biggy though, its working good, im currently in the process of looking for ball joints to adapt this setup, also of possibly fabricating a wedge to correct the angle of the 3/4 to ball joint and allow it to sit level in the 1/2 ton arm, the outer 2 bolts will fasten the 3/4 ton joint to the 1/2 ton arm, the inner two would take slight reaming, but with the angle that the joint mounts it would bind under a hard load, hence the wedge, just weld it to the arm, bolt on the joint, install the rest of the suspension, and be done with it, the 1/2 ton torsion bars even perfectly fit the socket on the 3/4 ton arms, looks like its meant to be too me, if you figure anything out post it or e-mail me, ill do the same to you, we'll show all those "swap it to a strait axel" guys that this is much simpler and it wont ride like a lumber truck when were done, thanks, Ryan
 
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#5 ·
what, you dont like the lumber truck ride?


i thought about doin this, but everyone talked me into an SFA conversion (yea, im a "swap it to straight axle" type now too.) i wanna know how this turns out, sounds cool
 
#6 ·
Re: Anybody ever swap a K1500 to K2500 8600GVW sus

I wouldnt wedge this or find adapter for this or that, id unbolt everything from a 3/4 front end. take the plasma cutter to your front end till you have bare frame,. then cut and move mounting points to where they need to be, also keep in mind your playing with all kinds of steering and suspension geomtry. you have to get everything anchored close enough to where you can still get the truck alingd. castor comes to mind. wich would be the one to be neglected.

if you have the 3/4 dif in there. why do you need the upper control arms. you can get 1 ton steering parts, (idler, pitman) that will botl to your 1/2 ton stuff, because there the same as the 1/2 ton stuff.

balljoints on the 3/4 ton may be stouter, but the ones on half ton should work just fine unless the front end is cranked to to the moon.

but its cool to make something from something else.

let us know how it goes

Evan
 
#7 ·
Re: Anybody ever swap a K1500 to K2500 8600GVW sus

What truck is this on? I mean body style, like burb/tahoe/truck. Wouldn't it make more sense to just swap the frame/drivetrain under the body that you want?
 
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