You & me both. Don't get anyone pregnant, go to class everyday & study really hard... You might get there someday. You need a high-paying job, minimal expenses and most important .... Don't get put in jail. You should be able to get a good job.
If you are going to try & upgrade your front axles soon to enhance trail-worthiness and have something to brag to your buddies about, you only have 2 choices. There is 1 company that manufactures a high-end replacement and runs like $2000 a set something ridiculous. I looked it up a couple months ago but don't recall the specifics since I cannot buy them.
The other option that is more realistic and feasible: join a few other forums, do some very thorough searching and you will find a couple of guys who fabricate an adapter that you will need to mount 3/4-ton CVs to your 1500 chassis. The 2500/3500 have much larger CV axles and are more than robust for your Yukon. I assume they work with 1500 hubs since I've never seen mention of that little tidbit, but that is something you will need to investigate as the 2500 cv-shaft splines need to match the pattern of the trucks wheel hubs. I would look around for a junkyard/recycler until I find 1 with a 2500 4x4, go ****** the front axles for $40-$50 (if you're ambitious I suppose purchase a brand new set via RockAuto cheap enough) then see if they will work on your wheel hubs and how much, if any lift/height is required to fit the uprated 2500 axle to the 1500 chassis specs. In other words the shafts have to sit flush between the wheels hubs and the differential carrier, just like your original axles; not too tight, not too loose or the "cv" part of the assembly will fail. If the 2500 are longer, you need the aforementioned 'adapter' in place to examine how much distance that piece will take up and should get you close. If the distance is still tight, lifting the truck 1-2 inches should put them just about right since the adapters are most likely engineered with a leveling kit in mind. You will have to converse with the guy who makes them. Have fun and report your finding back to this thread.
Also, any truck worthy of being referred to as "a rig" should have on-board air and even a welder if you are really intelligent. The on-board air is useful from everything to airing your tires back up for public road use after a day of being aired-down on the trails, to running pneumatic tools, cleaning stuff off, blowing up a mattress or what have you. I need 1 for tools and so that I can be mobile as a Wannabe mechanic. If you are clever, you use a big, old YORK a/c from the 70s modified with a bracket to run with your serpentine belt so you don't take away valuable storage space. I think welders are made from old, vintage alternators from back in the day when they used to be stout. Another thing I learned from my Land Rover days is keeping the suspension height minimal while gaining as much ground clearance as possible. People with hordes of cash buy these things called portal axles to achieve such a combination. Look that up 1 day. That's all I have for you, on-board air & portal axles. That's how you start a trail rig or expedition truck.
