What will it take?
 

I am looking into doing a straight axle swap on my 89 f150 4x4.
What kind of troubles am i looking at, is this something that i can possibly do myself, and what axle should i put up front.

does anybody have any suggestions at all.

well you got 2 reasonable options here:
1. go with a coil sprung solid axle, using the stock coil buckets up front. i've seen a 78 or 79 fullsize bronco axle used up front

2. the f250+ trucks came with leaf springs up front the 250 had leaf sprung ttb and the f350 had a solid axle. if you could find a donor truck to steal all the brackets from, that would be a pretty straight forward swap.

if it was mine, i'd go with the coil sprung way, then just relocated the spring mounts on the axle and modify the radius arm mounts that are on your f150 to match up . and if you can snag a cheap bronco, i'd swap the 9" rear end in too. i've seen tons of these swaps in mags over the years.

i've seen some kits available but they are pretty spendy, i think. but on the other hand way cheaper than a shop to do the work. the link below is one that jeffs bronco graveyard sells, it needs NO welding and you just got to drill 11 holes. its 1799 but it looks well built. it looks like the one fabritech used to sell.
http://broncograveyard.com/bronco/i-33910_froogle.htm