im buying either a 87-96 ford bronco or a 73-91 chevy k5 blazer in the next few days but need some help deciding mainly due to the axles. id rather the blazer due to the add ons are cheaper and im on a tight budget. the blazer i will be putting a 8 inch lift ($750) on 38s if i go with the bronco ill be putting a 6 inch lift ($1300) on 35s so you can see why i want the blazer more for less money. my concern is the axles the blazer is a gm 10 bolt front and rear axle and the bronco is front dana 44 TTB and rear is a ford 8.8 axle. it will be driven daily and i plan on putting it in the mud pretty often nothing to bad though due to the places around me dont have anything major.

now to the point the gm 10 bolts ive heard alot of bad stories about that they are real weak so it worries me to run 38s on them as i would have to for a while if i got the blazer untill i can afford to swap the axles an when i do i was thinking of swapping them with a dana 60 front and rear axles from a 99 f250. now the bronco the ford 8.8 is said to be very strong but the dana 44 TTB is a weak setup. and keep in mind either vehicle will be used with anywhere from 120,000-200,000 miles already on them.

as i said id rather the blazer so would i be ok running 38s on the stock 10 bolt axle with 4.88 gears for a good amount of time if im not doing any extreme wheelin on them? when i do the swap would going with the dana 60s be a good choice and easy swap or is there some other axles i should go with that would bolt right up and be strong enough for some hard wheelin?

any thoughts on the broncos vs the blazers

 

theres alot of variables there. i personally hate the ttb set up on broncos just cause to me they are a cluster**** of moving parts, more crap to go wrong.

the 38s on ten bolts is iffy. i did it for about 6 years and never really had any major breakage, i did break one axle shaft flooring it on gravel. but i did mostly mud. i had a strong engine and always eased into the throttle and eased off of it. if you try bouncing up hills or rocks yeah you will destroy those axles. also i ended up replacing bearings, tie rod ends, and ball joints about once a year. the truck did get used alot, saw offroad about twice a month and alot of farting around town cause it was fun to drive

also another variable is i was only running 373 gears. if you go with 4.88s the teeth on the ring gear are going to be so small they are going to be way easier to break then say my axles. 9 years later im still using those same axles cause i took care of them and went easy on them. they are now living the easy life under a s10 with 33s.

for 2 years they were under a 6000lb suburban with 38 12.50 superswampers and a 400ci engine. so they can last if you baby the truck, but like you said ive heard stories of people blowing them up first time out with like 35s