I have a 96 Ram 1500 2wd that has the "old style" wheel bearings. Has anybody switched over to use the later unit bearing style hubs? I'm trying to figure out if I find a 2000-2001 donor truck if I can just switch the spindles, rotors, calipers, pads and hubs. Rock Auto shows different ball joints, control arms, tie rod ends, etc starting in 2000, but I don't know why they made the change. Not really wanting to change the control arms if possible - the previous owner had installed new ones, along with other parts, about 30K miles ago. I would think that if the size and taper of the ball joint studs are the same between the different years it should work. I guess they might have changed something on the spindles where the tie rods mount, too. But since I need to do some brake work anyways, it would be a good time to do the swap, and I just prefer the sealed bearings, plus the options of factory wheels opens up a lot.

So, has anyone already done this swap, or knows exactly why it won't work?

Thanks, Willie