Justcuz you have been a wealth of information for me, I appreciate all that you share. This axle was last under a GM truck with a u bolt flip. I think they ground down the web at the marking point, but I'll look again. I don't think the guy I got it from knew exactly what it came from. I'll take some more pictures but the pinion shaft looks to me to be above the center line of the axle.
So the 'burb currently has a 3" body lift and 285/75/16 tires. I am shooting for adding 4 inches with a SAS and shackle flip and running a 35" tire with 4.56 gears, mild mannered locker in front and rear. I live in Texas and it seems all the stuff I wanna go see is on the other side of the state. I still need to get on the highway and do 75 without screaming RPM's. My opinion is why have 4 wheel drive if you slip when a tire loses traction, but a selectable is a little steep for my budget yet. And I'm nervous I will not like the height, wheel, tire combo after I see it all together.
I haven't decided which conversion route to take yet. Both ends will need gears to 4.56. The ford axle has some booty fab, ground down and welded calipers, with snapped off caliper clip retaining bolts. Swapping to 6 lug means new knuckles and that means aftermarket flat top or finding hen's teeth 74-78 chevy knuckles with flat tops and having the passenger one machined. And less capable brakes.
I thought about buying a complete chevy 1/2 ton dana44 and moving over the parts and replacing the wear items.
I don't think any 14 bolt came with 4.56 unless is was a cucv and I don't think in my model group GMT400, but I could be wrong.
I'm also little nervous about finding a drive shaft that will work with my Np243 and coming up with a shock arrangement.
The whole point of this is I feel like I'm out of improvements on the current IFS if I want to add a winch and front bumper. I also like the fact of more serviceability and customizing ability. I want a good solid family truckster, and believe me I had the discussion with the wife that this would be easier to just cut bait and get a square body, but the wife likes this suburban and has given me the go ahead to make it a long term project. So with that said, it stays and we build it to fit and paint to match