[1968_K20_4x4]

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread and helped me along, I learned a lot and I really appreciate all the great info I received from everyone. Just a quick update... I went to a scrap yard and found an open knuckle Dana 44 in my gear ratio. I bought it and brought it home, however when I got it home I discovered the pinion gear was all chewed up (I had inspected it at the junk yard but the ring gear looked fine and I couldn't tell that the pinion was screwed) So I searched for a new gear set and ended up finding an axle out of another 68 K20 a guy had for sale locally. I bought it just for the gears and original locking hubs, but when I got it home I took it all apart and found it was in really good shape. I took both axles to a local shop and was going to have them swap out the gear set from the closed knuckle axle to the open. However they took a look at the open knuckle axle and figured it needed a total rebuild, and were quoting me $2600 to do it. I thought for a while and decided that I could take the good closed knuckle axle, bolt it in my truck and save myself a lot of money. Like I say, the axle was in great shape and there was nothing at all wrong with it. So that's what I decided to do for now, and I'm currently in the process of swaping it out. I still kept the junkyard axle, and someday I may go ahead and install that. But for now it was just way simpler and easier to put the good closed knuckle axle in the truck and run it that way, and I'm happy with that.

Thanks again for everyone who helped me out!