2005 2500 4x4 SRW to DRW...any pitfalls come to mind.

[Northfork]

My eldest son is 32, lives in northern Nevada. He has a very nice quad cab 2500 and, like most younger men, modded the truck to suit his needs, and it has done so for many years.
His needs have changed, and he is looking at the pros and cons of setting the truck up as a dually. He has been driving my 07 the last week, using it to bring home a new to him
5th wheel toy hauler. This is a larger trailer, and while he would love to have a new 3500 dually, it isnt in the cards right now. His truck only has 125k on it, he's owned it for over 5 years and it has been well maintained. I feel like knowing" the truck he has is worth a lot, and doing the swap is a viable option.
He is not looking to re-title the truck as a 3500, or get a different weight certification on it, just wants the stability of a dually, and the added margin of safety with 4 tires on the ground out back.

The man works his tail off, long hours and usually 6 days a week, so I told him I would do some research for him. I will be reading all the threads but I thought I'd post up and ask if any of you who have done it have any suggestions or things we need to be aware of that we should watch out for. I think, ideally, finding a guy with a 3rd gen dually that wants to go SRW in northern Nevada would be the cat's meow, but odds of that are sorta slim.

Thanks in advance for any input.

 

[User113]

You can probably find a DRW axle in a salvage yard without too much difficulty. Make sure you get the matching gear ratio.

But also realize you will need four dual style wheels and dual style lug nuts.

If you want to be able to interchange your rear wheels with your front ones, you'll need six dual style wheels, and spacers for the front hubs, and maybe even different front hubs, I'm not sure.

You can probably get the spacers at the salvage yard as well.

If you want an interchangeable spare, another dual style wheel for that.

Then you'll need a bed with the fender flares. You might be able to buy just the fiberglass flares and bolt them on, I don't know.

I went from a DRW to SRW, so it is easily doable, but it is not cheap. At some point, you might want to consider just selling the SRW truck and buying a similar condition DRW truck; you may really be money ahead. Plus, as a bonus, you get the GVWR to go along with those fat fenders.

 

[Northfork]

Thank you for your response. After crunching the numbers and pondering the situation he has decided to keep the truck in the SWR configuration and bring it into the best tow-haul set up he can. He has a plan he is initiating to put him in a place to upgrade to a newer Dually in within the next 18 months. He tells me he can make this work, and, based on observing his actions in the past I believe he can do exactly what he says.
I know what may have impacted his change of heart.
A close family friend just purchased a 2105 3500 Laramie with the Aisin Automatic, and all the electro-whizbang stuff that comes with.
He got a short ride in it, and that was the end of that.