ive been doing some thinking and decided to swap the front dana 30 for something strong. The thing is that i want an axle with the same lug nut pattern as the rear and i dont want to buy a bolt in 44. I can weld on brackets myself, i just dont know what axle to use. Is there a common swap for the front of the tjs? Moving up to bigger tires and i dont think the d30 is going to last. Any ideas would help. thanks
You could look into a dana 30 from a Xj with the HP which will give you some added beef in the RP area. Then swap in 30spline shafts, and truss it. As for brackets, if you go with something no jeep TJ, both rubicon express and dynatrac make weld on ones.
I am not sure if there is a Dana 44 front that shares the same bolt pattern with your rear (5 on 4.5"). So if you are doing a front axle swap, you may be getting into a "might as well" project... You might as well do the rear out of the same vehicle, and either cut them down, or run wider axles. To echo the sentiments above, I know that a Dana 30 HP will hold up to a lot of abuse. The first time the guy I compete with went to Supercrawl in AZ, he was on a HP Dana 30 out of a Cherokee with stock shafts, and only broke one shaft (had competed on them and wheeled them for a couple years first), so I suspect that the Dana 30 will hold up better than you think.
If you have money to spend for a new axle you should consider the super 30 kit from superior axle & gear. Converts from 27 spline to 30 spline. thats about as strong as a stock dana 44. AND the best thing is that it comes with a locker! ARB locker to be exact. I did the super 35 kit to my rear end and it has been the best mod yet. The only thing different is i had the option of going with a detroit locker and since it was cheaper it was my choice. i dont know if you have a cheaper option with a super 30. Quadratec offers one.
Unless you are going to swap in a Rubicon housing the pickins are pretty slim for the stock bolt pattern options. Only one I know of is the Venezualan HP44 TJ axles that were around a couple years ago. They aren't myths as I saw quite a few of them, but none for quite a awhile.
Building a 44 from a Rubicon is not a bad option. You can run 30 spline inners and outers now with high strength ujoints will make it a pretty strong setup. Yeah it uses D30 knuckles, but honestly I've seen very little knuckle breakage out here in AZ even with 37's on them.
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