I was looking at my Dana 35 and was deciding weather or not I should gear it a little. I was going to buy a drum to disk conversion as well. The only thing stopping me was that the Axel is a little small. A few people have told me to swap in a Dana 44 or an 8.8. Do you think I should keep it? I was considering beefing up the spline to make it stronger. I just don't want to go through the hassel with an Axel swap.

 

Go for the swap and you will have "piece of mind" when wheeling. You can also go for a Chryco 8.25 and do the ZJ disc conversion...Tj

 

Ok, cool I'll keep that in mind.

 

A late 90's early 00 explorer, sport track, or ranger 8.8 rear end is about 3/8 of an inch longer on each side. The spring mounts are about that much off too but definately very strong. Most of the ones in the 4x4 models had either 3.55 or 3.73 gears and a factory posi in them. Most of the 2x4's had 3.23 gears. You can probably even find one with factory disks already on them. Then you'll just have to swap you proportioning valves at your master cylinder to insure your brake bias is correct. "Drum rear brakes take more pressure to operate vs Disk Rear."

 

Cool, I'll take a look at my local autowrecker.

 

you will be wasting your $$ if you put anything into the d35. buy a real axle and be done!