I polished a turdy 30. Trussed gusseted grizzly locker 4.88, Rear is a trussed 8.25 spider gears are welded to carrier and to themselves welded alot also 4.88 gears. The thing works very well max speed in 5th is about 65mph its wrapping 3000rpm. Current tires are 33s Sees more offroad than on rd havent broke a inner 30 shaft since upvradeing to the bigger 5-760 ujoint shafts.
If i was to axle swap it would be a d44 high piniin f150 axle with welded on radius arm wedges. These have plenty of axle tube for link brackets ounce the wedges are removed. grizzle or detroit upgrade shafts as needed. Probably 5.13 gears. 35 spline spooled 9" for the rear. 9" shafts are affordable they come long you cut them to fit your width.

No reason to run bigger tires than 37s on jeep.

Super duty axles could be considered but have no tube on drivers side to build on. 77.5-79 hp ford dana 60s just cost to much even the dana44 77.5-79 leaf sprung 3/4" cost to much.
The 76 older f150 axle is high pinion but less sought after so can still be found for good prices if one can be found..


I have one but the damn things in this truck. Full size broncos also have tgese 44s

 

I daily mine with lockers all the time, no problems at all, way better than an open diff.

 

awesome,thanks again for the help. Now I just have to wait till I see a good Jeep on marketplace

 

I am going to disagree with that. I have had front D44s, and if it is a true D44 and not the hybrid Rubicon axle, there is a major difference. 30 vs 27 spline axles, stronger ring and pinion, stronger spider gears, stronger casing, larger pinion U joint, 1330 vs 1310 and heavier axle tubes as well as double the shear strength on the ball joint studs, and true ball vs half ball on the upper ball joint. Not sure where you came up with your info, but I don't think anyone would disagree with me that knows Spicer specs. Then you can throw in larger brakes as well. And spindles and hubs vs unit bearing. Not even a close comparison there

 

Im in agreement. 44 is perfect jeep axle for a bigger tire trail rig

 

Do you have front or rear lockers

 

Hi pinion 44 out of a 76 older Ford. 76 has disc brakes older have drums but you can put anything on them for brakes.

30 spline with chromoly shafts and youl be amazed.

Update on my 30. With 35s grizzly locker it wasceatwas eating shafts pretty rapidly. Ive upgraded shafts to chromoly. Have only ran it a few times since.
the 29 spline miller locked 8.25 is going strong so far. Disc brakes areca must have in my opion to hold assembly together during shaft brakage. I ran 80 miles on a broken 27 spline shaft to get home trail and freeway.

 

Lockers in both axles.

 

The Achilles heel of the HP 44's is they still use the 5-760x u-joint in the axles, and there is no option for going bigger. Even the Dana 30 knuckle can accommodate a 1350 sized u-joint (5-7166X), but the bore on the 44 knuckles is barely large enough for the 1310 size. Sure, you can buy chromoly shafts and u-joints, or go RCV's, but I have a hard time justifying $1,000-$1,500 for shafts. I was looking for some second-hand shafts for awhile, but I had the issue of looking for Ford length inners with Chevy length stubs to match the small bearing Chevy outers I was looking at running. This is also an issue when trying to source spares as it typically requires buying a Ford set and a Chevy set to make one pair of shafts.

With RCV's and drive slugs the 44 could be a very stout axle, capable of taking a significant flogging. I'm not sure I feel comfortable dumping thousands into making a frankenstein axle with parts that are hard to source while there are better options available. I don't love ball joints choices on the 44's, and I feel the spindle/hub/lockout setup is less convenient than unit bearings. I dove deep into 44 tech and was very close to pulling the trigger on the build, but ultimately got cold feet and backed out. Right now I'm leaning towards building the 30, but would love to have another choice that could match a 9" rear. JK44 would be an ideal choice if they weren't worth their weight in gold.

 

Once you put Chromoly shafts in a Dana 30 the ring an pinion is the weak link, especially if you go lower than a 4.56 gear set, a Dana 44 has a larger ring and pinion that fixes that problem and allows you to run a lower gear like 5.13 or 5.38 without the small pinion gear issue that the Dana 30 has, with Chromolly shafts the 44 will hold up pretty well with up to 37s and a locker.

 

The dana44 hp out of 76 older fords can be found foe cheap. These axles provide lots of tube to weld link brackets to.
the psd 60 can be had for about the same price as a Hp44 but has zero driverside passenger tube to land control arm brackets on. Ares might have a truss for the swap into jeep .
innere shafts can be any length on either. Wether going rcv or just chromo.

Cheapest path might be a dana60 bare houseing with C's set up to desired width. But C's un welded that way pinion angle and castor can be set durring mock up.

A grizzly or detroit plus chromos willbe going in either axle so cost is virtually the same 60 can bump to 35spline.

There are some ball joint leaf sprung ford 60s that look like they have a good amount of axle tube to work with ball joints aren't that scarey well unless your dana 30 keeps spitting them out of the C's like mine.

 

It is popular to say you have ton axles just to say you have done it. But honestly, way overkill. The half ton pickup D44 axles are plenty. And if you are worried about axle shaft U joints, RCV is the way to go and cheaper in the long run than trying to shoe horn a Dana 60 in a narrow rig like an XJ

 

That's what i was getting at. If your going to do rcv you can get them in any length you want on a dana 60 or 44 so you mys well go jeep width and set castor with a ******* pinion angle either option is fabrication heavy both options as good as the other. I think the jk 44 lockers bolt in the old 44 houseing. This means the 44 can go 35spline. With rcvs or chromo axles is on par with dana 60.

 

You are right Evan, the JK lockers will bolt in the standard 44. However you cannot use the lower ratios with them. The offset is the same as the 3.73 and down. And they are 32 spline. However you can go with a Super 44 with 33 spline with any ratio and if you want you can shoe horn in some JK gears and have 44% stronger gears with your 50% stronger axles. The other option if yo uwant 35 spline axles is to use the ARB 35 spline locker or a 35 spline spool

 

I was dissapointed to see no grizzly andcdetroit 35spline for jk

1350 ujoints excite me

Doing this research has made it plainly aparentvi royalt ****ed up building a 30