So I was driving my XJ yesterday and noticed that everytime I came up on a little hill it downshifted to maintain speed (60mph). I'm new to jeeps and I've seen several threads on swapping axles (D44 and 8.8) and didnt know if I would be better off swapping the axle or the gears. I dont know what gears I have/need, I tried checking the way I checked mustangs (count how many times the driveshaft turns during 1 rotation of the tire) but it came out weird (1.75) Any advice would be helpfull, jeep is a 1994 Cherokee sport, I6, auto, 4wd.

 

Forgot to ad, 33x12.50 tires and 6" suspension lift.

 

swapping gears is a lot cheaper and no fab work needed

 

 

From what I've read I have a dana 30 in the front and dana 35 or chrysler8.25 in the rear. How can I tell which the rear is? Do I need a 4wd specific ring and pinion or will a regular r&p work?

 

for the front it is a reverse cut and heres the different axle types

 

you can check just by looking at it. heres a comparison photo of what the different ones look like.

 

Looks like I have the 8.25

 

you can gears from motive gear for $100.00 bucks an axle http://www.motivegear.com/pages/ring...nion_gears.htm

 

With 33's you'll want to regear it. Go with 4.56 or 4.88's.

 

I was thinking about 4.10s, I dont want to sacrifice to much mpg but I want it to have better pickup than it has right now. I was looking at summit and they have 4.10s and 4.56s, I think 4.88 would be to steep.

 

4.10's should be perfectly ok. A little high but definitely a huge improvement over stock.

 

with 4.10 you will get better mpg but lose performance i would go with 4.27 it will be balance you will get good performance and good gas but 4.10 will be fine if thats the route you want to take

 

4.27s would probably be better but I havent been able to find them for both axles

 

http://www.motivegear.com/pages/ring...nion_gears.htm