D44 front YJ axle swap questions.

Msperlazza

Active Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2010
Location
Clemmons
Ok so I bought a set of axles D44 and 9in to swap into my YJ and I got a deal that I could not pass up. The D44 front has the cast wedges 78 79 model ford front end I have seen them setup for leaf springs before and its kinda shady Im thinking about trying to find a earlier model housing to swap the gear set and locker etc into, If this is possible? Which would yall recommend for ease of swap? If anyone has any photos of a swap of a D44 this style converted to leafs they would be greatly helpful in my swap.

Thanks, Scott
 
you NEED to read through this if you haven't: http://77cj.littlekeylime.com/web_rs44.html

also, cast wedges are a pain. IIRC 77 and earlier models had the welded on wedges, which can be cut off. with the cast ones...you will probably have to cut it off and re-tube or sleeve it, which probably isn't worth all of the effort involved.

basically, I would recommend finding a different model housing, either earlier, or something out of an f250 (which had leaf springs anyway)
 
Will I be able to use my gears etc in a different housing? Could I retube the housing and anyone got any idea what that would cost?
 
cost...I have no idea.

If you can weld and you have a chop saw and some correctly sized DOM then you could do it. there's a writeup in the YJ tech section on Jeepforum I believe--I think Joe Dillard did this when his dana 30 cracked at the CAD.
I was thinking about doing this, but D44s are common enough that they can be found with the welded wedges, or a leaf sprung model.

I believe you could use the gears etc, but I am not 100% sure. someone else may know better than I do.

the shafts could be different lengths. then you would want flat top knuckles--chevy is preffered I think, so then you would have to run chevy outer shafts, chevy brakes etc with the chevy knuckles.

Mr. N's site has a TON of information on all of these different d44 models. I read through it a few times, and then ultimately decided on a d60 front instead.
 
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