30-31 AA axle upgrades--Ideas?

A friend has just gotten a 31 AA truck and wants to upgrade the running gear, yet keep the stock flavor such as the 20in Budd rims. This is going to be a working AA truck and has to support the larger weight. Was wondering if say 48-54 or 55 F4 or F5 parts can be swapped out. Did a thread search (20 pages) and found nothing of use. Any ideas on what to use and what works would be of great help in this project. Also looking for steering ideas, as would like to keep the cab kind of stock with a floor shift trannie. If anyone knows, its the HAMB! Thanks

 

BBT Really looking for ideas or leads. Thanks in advance!

 

I have 2 AAs, there's not much you can do in the way of more modern parts if you want to keep the Budd wheels, the wheels are unique to the 30-33 model years, maybe 34, but I think it may have been different again. There are guys out there who have backyard engineered hydraulic wheel cylinders to the stock backing plates, but I don't think it's worth the hassle, my stock mechanical brakes do a good job of stopping my truck, so I'd never consider any type of conversion. You might consider keeping both axles if you're dead set on the Budd wheel look (which I really like about these trucks too), and spend some effort getting the torque tube converted to open drive shaft so you can run a more modern engine and transmission. If you have the high speed rear it will be 5.14 gears, and with 6.50x20s you will be doing highway speeds if you can get an engine to pull 2500 rpms or more. One thing I can say, is that if you want to go much faster than 50 mph, it is really hard to get smooth running wheels and tires. These things shake pretty bad when you get them going, or at least mine does.