My bad on bringing this up on a 3rd gen area, but on the 2nd gen, you wont lose your abs, since the thing you have to do to the brakes is take the caliper and rotor off to get to the axle shafts.
I'm don't remember what the 3rd gen's are supposed to have for a front axle, but if its the Dana 60, I imagine that the parts will be easily availible to do a conversion. Oh yeah, I hate being 8000 miles away from my '02. :{
