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Are all 10 bolt front axle shafts the same?

Good enough. So pretty much everything 88+ should work in my 90? And any 10 bolt outer will work? I ask because somehow along the way I ended up with one of my outers that doesn't have the snap ring clip on the end.
 
'89.5 and earlier were all the same (28 spline inner, 19 spline outer)

89.5 and later they switched to the 8.6" which uses the same ring and pinion but the inner shafts were upgraded to 30 spline and the carrier bearings were slightly bigger in the 8.6"

The Blazers was a special gray area some of them had 28 spline axles all the way up to 91 or 92.

There is a pretty good write up here.
http://www.my4by.com/gm-10-bolt-8.5-inch-vs-8.6-inch.html
 
Some weird info going on here.......

There are no 10-bolts that came from the factory with external style lock-outs, or shaft length differences. You would be talking about Dana 44's as some had external hubs and the inner shaft lengths were different than the 10-bolts.

I never heard reference to the 8.6" 10-bolt until at least the late-90's or early 2000's so well after the last 10-bolt front axle was produced. However the 89.5 model year could very well be the time they switched as all factory '90-'91 K5 and Sub's I have seen came with 30-spline front shafts, but I have heard both ways on '89's.

Basically you need to verify you currently have 30-spline shafts and when you buy used actually count the splines and check the length. I remember years ago trying to order a new set of factory 30-spline shafts for my 10-bolt and a large and well known company kept sending me D44 shafts. I finally had to send them a picture of the shafts side by side showing the differences. Also with a 24 year old truck you never know if the axles have been swapped out at some time unless you have had the truck forever.
 
To clarify I meant the 88 and later Blazer were the gray area.

Prior to that they were all the same (28 spline)
 
Some weird info going on here.......

There are no 10-bolts that came from the factory with external style lock-outs, or shaft length differences. You would be talking about Dana 44's as some had external hubs and the inner shaft lengths were different than the 10-bolts.

I never heard reference to the 8.6" 10-bolt until at least the late-90's or early 2000's so well after the last 10-bolt front axle was produced. However the 89.5 model year could very well be the time they switched as all factory '90-'91 K5 and Sub's I have seen came with 30-spline front shafts, but I have heard both ways on '89's.

Basically you need to verify you currently have 30-spline shafts and when you buy used actually count the splines and check the length. I remember years ago trying to order a new set of factory 30-spline shafts for my 10-bolt and a large and well known company kept sending me D44 shafts. I finally had to send them a picture of the shafts side by side showing the differences. Also with a 24 year old truck you never know if the axles have been swapped out at some time unless you have had the truck forever.

O **** me 6.2 is right. I totally just mashed 1/2 ton stuff together there. Im going to edit to keep future searched information not screwed up!
 

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