I've towed 5500 lbs with my '95 roughly 50 miles on multiple occasions. I also drug a 4000 lb popup camper all over New England for a two week vacation. Since then I've added a newer Durango and towed a 7k lb camper out to Yellowstone and back. Just to give a little background...
The 5500lb...
Frame rust on these things is really not much of a concern. The body is going to rot through long before the frame is an issue. Check around the bottom of the rear wheel wells, this is where the body rust usually starts.
The welding wire probably has a 70ksi strength, while the base material will be double that. The mixing of the base and weld materials will kind of average the two out at the location of the weld. When you put it use, the sway war will bend at its weakest spot, ie the weld. I doubt it will...
If the preload was really overtight, I could see it binding at the extremes of travel, simply because there is little use of the rack in the box at that position, hence little wear. Since your box isn't working right anyway, loosing the preload screw on the top of the box and see if anything...
I pulled mine to change out the low range gears. Not a bad job at all, if you have a transmission jack. I borrowed a buddies HF cheapie, it did the job. As for the while your in there, the TC output seals, and the TC input seal are all that are really left. The output seals require a fair...
Stock wheels? Wheels with less backspace will increase steering effort.
Preload on the trunion bearings set too tight, if someone had R&R'd the front axle.
Preload on the steering box adjusted too tight.
Damaged steering stabilizer.
I'd drive the rust bucket around for a couple months, then proceed to option 2. That will give the diesel parts some time to show you what trouble they are going to cause, or not.
'94 only has them before the cats. Disconnect both sensors and take it for a drive. It will not hurt anything. Just make sure you strap the wires out of the way. If the truck drive near normal, you have found your culprit. You can then try reconnecting one then the other to determine which...
I'm running the LTS pads. Before that Akebono. Before that, who knows. The Akebono's were an upgrade on whatever the PO had installed. The LTS were a bigger upgrade over the Akebono.
The LTS pads are mostly quiet. First stop at the end of the driveway is weak, but after that they are...
That is a $1500 truck. There is rust in the rear rockers, maybe the front of rear wheel wells too. It is where these trucks seems to rust first. Can be fixed, but not for $10k.
I built mine this fall. I really didn't have the option to buy since I run a body lift. Drew it up in solidworks, printed out patterns, cut out the pieces using a metal cutting circular saw and a jig saw. I'd say I'm into it $250 in materials, but I do have a 5' x 5' piece of 3/16" steel left...
I have seen other's remove the factory seat rear feet, for lack of a better word, use a cross bar and bolt it all together. One of those things I want to do someday, but never seem to get around to it.
I picked up this truck about a year ago. It was intended to be a parts truck, but turned out to be in better shape overall that the '95 I was driving at the time. Got some rust and a bit of neglect:
Been picking away at it since. Here is where I ended up this weekend: