i picked up a Dana 44 with a LSD and 3.55 gears today, it was pulled from an 86 cherokee.... now are you ready for the best part....... i only payed $90 for it, brakes and everything included, now please; some people tell me how good of a deal i got...............

 

lucky......so i gues your good to go bolt that thing right up! good find man!

 

cool deal. i thought xj's didn't get the 44 until 87 when they came out with a motor that actually could get out of its own way. musta been a late 86

 

thx for the comments, i'm actually painting diff covers right now, i'll prolly swap the axle in sometime this week so i'll deff throw some pics up for you guys

 

Great deal. And please do post those pics. We love pics here.

 

already pulled the cover and double checked gearing and LSD

D44 on left, D30 on right

did 2 coats primer flat black and then 3 coats high gloss red, both rustoleum

 

Cool, what a lucky man..

 

Are you sure the doner XJ was an 86? I ask because I know for a fact that the XJ I got my D44 from was an 87 (My son still drives it to this day)....and my D44 looks indentical to the one in your pics. Here is a pic of the ChryCO 8.25 I removed form my 91 XJ along with the D44 I now have in it....Oh, and a picture of my XJ and the boys' XJ on swap day.

 

very sure it was an 86, the guy i bought it from bought owned the original 86 it was in and played for a little while and then parted it out for cash and other projects, he recently upgraded to full width axles (ford HP D44 front and ford 9" rear) and this was the leftover axle from his rig

ya got a nice lookin pair of jeeps there and i think its cool that you can share the jeep hobby/life with your boys

 

he could have always swapped it under his rig sometime down the line

 

just before pulling the 8.25 out

no axle

got the 44 in but i stripped 2 of the u-bolts so i'm gonna order a new set tomorrow and hopefully have this thing all done up before saturday

 

nioce

 

$90 for a D44 is a great deal,I have followed this for a bit and thought I would share my exsperience with you. my son decided he would show his friends how tough my jeep is and went out and blew up the 35c,the next day I spent sometime educating myself to jeep diffs,i went out to the local piknpul and pulled a 8.25 thinking I had a D44 because of the larger tube size. it took only a short time to relize what it was. i went online and educated myself a bit more. i then went back out to the piknpul and searched every jeep for a D44,no luck,it was hot and there was one last jeep to check,it was an 87. I did not no for sure that It was a D44 so like an idiot I asked this guy if it was,he did not know. i ran home printed out a picture of it and went back,sure enough it was a 44,I had a few hours until the place closed so i just got some water and set on it,the next day i was the first through the door and 30 minutes later called the same son to bring out my truck. As I was leaving the same guy was showing up,a little put out,but so what. The best thing is I know the folks there and due to other items I have helped them with, the diff was free.
Just lucky

 

thats pretty fortunate, send me some pics if you can... i have my connections but they all know the value of these kind of "treasures" so i really don't get lucky often..... i usually just get my replacement parts for free....
i had to fix me Exhaust manifold and i got one free (ended up getting 2 more also free)..... power steering pump free, d-shafts, control arms, starters, alts, and even 2 sets of axles and a tranny, all free.... the red lift shackles as you can see in the picture, those were also free.... so i get lucky sometimes but this axle was too nice to pass-up and $90 was more than a decent price

 

I found a D44 under a 2wd 90 Comanche a couple of months back. I was driving through Birmingham and decided to stop at the Pull A Part for a quick scavenger hunt. There it sat with 3.55 LSD just waiting to be pulled. Problem was I did not have time to remove it because I was on my way to Mississippi for a job and knew there was no way it would still be there a week later when I came back through. Well I stopped anyway just to check and a short time later that baby was in the back of my work van headed for home. I still have not installed it yet because the MJs are spring under, so I will have to get new spring perches and shock mounts. But at least I got it before someone else did.