Do you want to upgrade both the front 30 and rear 35 or just the rear 35? either way a new built one will set you back about 4-5k for a set. Used one's rear 1000-1500, 44 fronts bit more as most of those are off rubcion models. Good place to start looking for used rears. car-parts.com
I am not sure what the big deal is w/ Dana 44's. Are they just popular due to the amount of after market parts?
Why not get a GM 8.5" rear and install it. You can pick them up in all different sizes from ~52" from backing plate to Backing plate up to 58". Spring purch mounts aer easy to modify and with a little fabrication / geometry you can create your own upper / lower control arms to bolt right in.
I have a stock 28 spline 8.5" GM Posi rear end in my cutlass and it holds up to the pounding of a big block 455 w/ 475hp and 550tq. and a B&M stage II shift kit. Im sure it could easily hold up to the 4.0 and 35" tires with out breaking. If you look around at junk yards you can easly pick up an 8.5" rear for $100-$300 and set it up the way you want to.
Or if you are really worried about breaking it, you can pick up a Ford 9" rear for the amount of money u could find a Dana 44.
Generally users that are trying to replace the D35 with a TJ D44 don't have the skills to weld in the brackets that are needed for the TJ's link setup. When you take a $300 axle and then add in $400 for brackets, and labor for seting up the brackets you get into the realm of just buying a bolt in 44.
Also if I remember rightly aren't the GM axles you mention 6 lug? You would have to address that also since TJ's are 5 lug. Overall there are 2 good solid easy to find matching axles to stick in the rear of a TJ without changing much. The bolt in TJ 44 and the Ford 8.8 that uses the same lug pattern.
glad your admin, I was really worried for a sec. lol:wavey:
and just checking my facts I got to thinkin about it the ford 8.8 is a direct swap right? there is a little modification to transferring it but not much.
Pay no attenion to Enigma and his GM 10 bolt recommendation.
The 10 bolt GM car axle has a 5 on 4.75" bolt pattern. The TJ has 5 on 4.5". The GM truck 6 bolt is 6 on 5.5". The GM rear axle has c-clips. Later 8.5" axles came in either 28 or 30 spline configuration. Early 10 bolts were all 28 spline with an 8.2" ring gear. This rear axle is too much bother to consider for a TJ conversion when compared to a Ford 8.8".
The Ford 8.8" out a '96 on up Exploder has 31 spline axles, disc brakes and the same 5 on 4.5" pattern the TJ uses. The width is just 1/2" narrower than the TJ axle. The 31 spline axle has c-clips but, aside from having a marginally larger shaft, the alloy used in the shaft is much stronger than stock Dana 44 shafts. Superior makes a $550 (prox) kit called a Super 88 which gets even better shafts and eliminates the c-clips.
Car-parts.com lists the 8.8" for about $250 around here. Add $1,000 and you can get a Detroit, gears and brackets. Another $550 gets you the Super 88 kit. For less than $2K you get an axle that will easily hold up to 37s and use your existing tires and wheels.
The car 8.5" axles are 5 Lug
The trucks can be 6 or 8 lug depending on how beefy you want.
Personally I was talking about the GM 8.5" Oldsmobile rear end that was bolted in instead of the Cheavy C-Clip rear end. However there are C- clip eliminators that are available to get around this.
"The Type O (Oldsmobile) 12-bolt rear ends use a smaller ring gear than the Type C (Chevy) 12-bolt, resulting in lower strength. The good news it that the Type O units retain the axle shafts at their outboard ends, while the Type C units use the infamous c-clips at the imboard end. This is why you see C-Clip Eliminator kits available for the Chevy axles. Also the Chevy rear has a "scalloped" cover where the Olds is smooth. "
Type "C" Chevy Rear Ends
This rear end retains the axle shafts with "C" clips. These do break from time to time, and the result is the axle shaft works its way out of the axle tube. A hint that a clip might be broken is a faint moan from the rear axle when backing up (mine made no noise going forward). Moral of the story: stick with your Olds rear.
The "C" rear can be modified with "a C-clip eliminator kit". That solves that problem of relatively fragile broken "C" clips.
295/50/R15 Street Tires no problems w/ the axles
Thank the lady that hit me for the mis-match front end color, it has since been painted.
Enough w/ the thread hijack. good luck w/ the swap. As Digger mentioned the best bet for bolt in would probably be the one from the Exploder. And I am sure you can find them a dime a dozen in the junk yard. Good luck which ever way you go and keep us posted.
Enigma-
The Buick, Olds, Pontiac (BPO) rearend was discontinued in 1971. The rearend in your Olds is a corporate GM 10 bolt used in everything from light cars to 1/2 ton 4x4 trucks. 28 spine axles were used in all up until 88 or 89 (depending on the book you read). Later models all had 30 spline shafts. Your car could easily be upgraded by installing new 30 sp shafts and a new diff. You are correct in saying that the 8.5" axle can be 5 lug but the bolt circle is 5 on 4.75" instead of Jeep's standard 5 on 4.5".
Had full size Bronco.. It was either 8.8 or 9. Either way it was freakin bullet proof. I had 33's on it. Had a friend who thought it was funny to knock the gear shift into neutral on me at stop lights. So it got neutral dropped from 4k rpm. It didnt even stutter, just chirped the tires and went about its business. And that was 5.7 V-8 abuse.
Actually the rear end that I have in there is not the stock one, It is a 1971 Olds 442 8.5" rear. Not the crappy 7.5" rear thats prob comporable to a Dana 30.
Just like older model-jeep fans nothing on that car is origional
the 8.8" would be an easy swap but how could you attach / setup a "trac-bar" on the axle since it was designed to only have upper / lower control arms?
Also, you can make up for the difference in axle sizes by getting rims with a different BS to compnsate.
but why go to al the trouble, you can just get an 8.8 out of a junkyard, pay $600 for a kit and weld all the brakcets on and then your good to go, and it comes with a locker and 4.56 gears!
Haha. Well I guess its all in ones confidence. Ive been welding for a pretty long time now though. Id probably trust my welds to something like that. I will see next summer when I do a swap myself.
Nah, they should be .250 wall. However there were some that ended up being .188 wall, but for the life of me I don't know the specifics about what make/model/year etc for that.
However with a plasma cutter it's pretty easy to blow thru an 8.8 tube. I know this from experience. And with fluid in it makes a helluva fire ball.
96 or newer will have disk brakes, but even the drums on the older 8.8's are better than what are on the D35.
There's always talk about 6 cylinder vs. V8 having 28 spline/31 spline shafts, but I've never seen an Explorer 8.8 with 28 spline shafts. Now from what I know all Ranger and Mustang 8.8's are 28 spline.
Not a big fan of the 9" with that extremely low pinion. Unless you are blowing the wad on the True High 9. HP60 front and FF 60 rear will hold up to just about anything with those tires on there. Gonna cost ya even if you junk yard the axles. Just ask Hackle. It's exactly what is in and going in his YJ.
There's a guy here in town selling a Kingpin HP60 for a grand. Good deal.
I'm just lookin' to the future. I was already thinking D60's but some one was telling me to go for a 9" in the rear. I'd deffinatly try and find a junker set and build them... up here I bet I can find an old Ford for $800-1000 with a set of 60's under it
I went back and check my records, which I should have done first, and found the .188" is the normal thickness. Some did come with .250" but they were usually in F150's and some of the bigger cars.
The 3 Exploder rear ends that I've had didn't have .250" tubes.
At any rate, be carefull when welding. They're still thinner walled than many other axle housings out there.
For a cheap route you could go with the ford 8.8 or you could just go to the junk yard and see if there's a wrecked TJ unlimited that comes with a stock d44 and 3:73 gears. Direct bolt on except you'd have to change the gears in the front to match.
Good idea but the TJ Dana 44 is very expensive in the wrecking yards. You can easily build an 8.8" with gears, brackets and locker for what you'd pay (without a locker and probably not with the gears you need) for a TJ 44 in the wrecking yard.
As 1BLKJP, mentioned, the 9" has an extremely low pinion. The True high9 system is great for frontends but I'm not a fan in rear applications. The gear helix that makes the 9" so strong (yes, I know the additional pinion support makes it stronger too) makes it much weaker when run on the 'coast' side of the gear.
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