Hello.

Now I have some 35" Cooper STTs on my TJ and only a stock D30 front axle.
Will i damage the axle when i go wheeling the next time (only moderate wheeling in mud or sand)? Should i better stay on the road?

Is it better to use the front locker or not to use it?

I want to install some stronger chromoly Alloy Axles in the future, but at this point I don´t have the money for that.

Btw. for the old 35" BFG ATs it was strong enough...

Thanks in advance for your replies.

nicolas-eric

if you had 35's on it before and you didn't break anything why would you now?

HAHA d30 with 35's and locker Go for it! It has a 70% chance of survival I say, but if it breaks it just a good opportunity to buy a d45

A dana 30 in the front should be fine I would say. What is a D45? I have never heard of one??

2x ^.. i think its a typo.. also nico you have a rubi.. doesnt that come with front and rear 44s?

Ya typo, the d30 was made tough, go ahead and test it

D30 should be fine. But upgraded shafts never hurt.

He doesn't have a rubi trip, that's just it's nickname, that's why he installed lockers too, remember. It's the ruNICOn

It should be fine.
just check and make sure your axle shaft u-joints are in good condition and replace them if they arent.

with 35's and the dana 3- you should be fine. However, with a locker in there it might make things like u-joint wear faster etc, with that big of a tire. ARb, or the like, would be best as it would not be on all the time so less wear, stress on shafts, u-joints, hubs etc.

Run it till you break it and then upgrade accordingly.... (Jeep motto)

Jeep makes the ruBICOn but the ruNICOn is one of a kind.

Lol he doesn't have a rubi, it's a sahara, it even has the sahara decal right on the side...

yes, it´s a ruNicon and not a ruBicon.
i have a rear D44 but in the front there´s only a D30.

thanks for your replies. now i hope my front axle will be ok after i go wheeling next saturday.



@chad_p: before u had ATs and i think that with MTs (more traction) there´s more torque/load that stresses tha axle.

I know he changed the decal to Runicon but i allways thought he had an 05 Rubi.. anyways life goes on lol. I wonder whats the biggest tire the front can handle.

35". After that, whether it's a Dana 30 or a Rubicon D44, the ball joints and knuckles start going bad at an accelerated rate. Outside of the pumpkin and axleshafts themselves, a TJ D30 and Rubicon D44 are the same from the axletubes outwards.

Yeah, when you start putting 37" or bigger tires on a D30 Ring and Pinions start exploding in spectacular fashion.

lol yeah i've heard of 37s or 38s falling and rolling ahead of you..

in the future i´ll install some alloy axle shafts and stronger u joints. will the axle be strong enough for 37s then?
my new STTs are 3/4" higher than the BFG ATs but they look very small. i want some 37s next time i buy tires.

Nicolas, I'll put it this way. Anything can work. Hell I've seen 38's on a D30 and D35c, but the guy never took it off road and it wasn't locked at all so it survived the long haul. Then I've also seen people with 33's hammer down and get bound up which lead to busting D30 shafts. Even the other day I saw an Alloy Chromo 44 front shaft twist so bad it broke clean off.

All I can say is that if you want to start running bigger heavier tires on a stock drivetrain then you have to know that you could break something anytime you go wheelin. That's why I carry spare shafts front and rear and have the ability and the tools to change them in a minimal amount of time. The only other thing I'd worry about with having your high dollar locker in your D30 would be sheering off teeth on the ring gear and some how messing up the locker. But each person and every scenario is different. None of us can give you a concrete yes or no on if your D30 would survive under your wheelin style on 37's.

One more time... it's not the axleshafts or u-joints that are solely responsible for the problems running 37" tires on a Dana 30, it's everything else. I'm running hardened 4340 chromolly axleshafts in my D30 and I still don't dare running anything bigger than 35" tires, as much as I would like to with my new high excessively highway RPMs as a result of a new 3-speed automatic transmission.

The Dana 30 is not strong enough for 37" or bigger tires, no matter what you do to the axleshafts and u-joints.

ok thanks.
i think then i should better stay with 35s and install some chromly axle shafts and u joints anyway.

after all the money that i spent for the front ARB locker and the front gears in the D30 an axle swap is no option.
my "runicon" will never have bigger tires than "small" 35s...

lol 35's are pretty big for a TJ...i only have 27's on mine right now if that makes you feel better

i didn´t mean it. was just a joke.

i had small 205/75r15 on my old YJ and 30s on my old TJ. i always wanted some 33s on my jeep. now with the 35s i´m very happy.

Are 27's stock?

215/*75r15 is stock. thats about 27.5x8.5

Actually i'm sorry but its actually 27. 75 x 8.5

sorry i forgot 1/4". with 27.75" they look much bigger...

I see. I thought 30 was stock since thats what the old lady who had my jeep was running. She used it to buy flowers once a week so I doubted she had bigger tires put on

hehe

here in europe all stock TJs came with 215/75r15. only the sahara had 225/75r15.