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Can you tell us specifically what you did and are looking to change? And YES my 74 I went custom build on it, roll pan, shaved tailgate, caddy taillights, slammed to the ground and if there was an undo button in life, I pressed it on that truck. Is it a ton more time and money, yes but I love the truck and it's worth it to me.
Why bother trying to find a Dana 70 when Dana 80's are plentiful??? They're underneath pretty much every 1-ton Dodge and Ford made since 1990. Spring perches and shock mounts will be different, but 1-ton Ford trucks are plentiful every place I've surveyed. Find a 1-ton OBS Ford. The 8-lug bolt pattern was all the same until Ford changed stuff... as Ford will. Even a modern 1-ton Dodge will have the 80 with the same bolt pattern as the squarebody. Fenders would be way harder to find... except the community already came up with that one. Obviously you'll need an additional pair of wheels and tires. They'll cost. But I don't see $3k to stick a DRW under any squarebody K30.
Personally I am rebuilding my truck because I like it and I have owned my 81 K10 since 1986. I originally bought it to pull a boat and hunt in Colorado. It has been all over the U.S.A. with me and my daughter went 4 wheeling up a mountain with me as a baby in Colorado. Just many memories! Some times you spend money you know you will not get back if you like your truck enough.Then again a new truck cost between 50K and 70K. So the money I have spent is putting my truck in good condition and it will probably last longer than a new one would and it will be more dependable because new vehicles break down more often and are much harder to work on.Guess, the bottom line is, they money is a sunken cost you don't get back and if you have spare parts that you don't need, sell them for what you can get. Then enjoy your truck and fix it up the way you want it. My time is short and you cannot take it with you when you go. Perhaps a family member will enjoy it one day and remember you with a smile on their face.
$1k sounds crazy high to me... seeing how relatively plentiful those axles are. My local truck junkyard was gonna sell me two late-model Dana 60's for an OBS-Ford project. Granted I would have had to do a fair amount of work to stick them under a truck from two generations prior. What killed that project was the swap Ford made in lug-pattern. I didn't want to have to run late-model, BIG wheels. Another option might be something like the Sterling axle out of a medium-duty Ford Econoline. I built another OBS Ford into a flatbed for my girlfriend a few years back. The truck was originally a 2WD dually, but someone had swapped the SRW Dana 60 I have spare into it. In any event the Sterling axle pulled from a 2000-something E-450 ambulance practically jumped into place. The only modification I had to make was the spring perches. Shock mounts were in the same place. Rear axles (and maybe seats) are the only Ford items I would ever advocate swapping into a GM product. Even more so with recent memory of servicing brakes and wheel bearings on a GM corporate floater vs. the Ford/Dana 60 floater. Yeah... they're similar... but you can service the Dana brakes without completely disassembling the hub. The GM axle has the brake drums mounted to the INSIDE of the unit-hub, so axles have to be removed, then the hubs, to FINALLY get the brake drum off. It's a lot more work. Back to the Sterling axle, it's my opinion that anything with a 6.0L Powerstroke... or a 6.4L is likely to be almost free. Those engines were hot garbage, most of them are broken and they're just taking up space. And there are plenty of non-diesel, 1-ton OBS Fords with tired Ford small blocks going for practically free. At least in the southeast. Here's the flatbed with the Sterling rear:Be SafeJeremy
Have you thought about using a cab & chassis 14 bolt and tucking the dual rear wheels under a fleetside bed?