All done.







When I get the axles, I ll have to test fit the bridge on it and see how much to cut off from the bottom of the chunk.

 

Very cool.

 

Pretty busy lately...

In preparation for the 35" tires, I went ahead and did the cut n fold on the wheel wells to open it up a bit



Then I got a trailer and went to a friend's & picked up the axles and tires. Loaded up the trailer pretty tight.






35x12.50xR15 Hankook Dynapro MT. Pure ***** I ll tell you that lol. The specs of the axles is waggy 44's, 4.88 gears. Yukon zip locker up front and Spartan in the rear. Both were already set up for a xj which made it a lot easier for me.

I fabricated a sort of truss using the bridge and piece of 2x4 steel tubing.






Drained the diffs to clean everything so I can have a fresh start on this...

 

Today I was able to pull the old 8.25 out in half hour. I did t expect it to be that quick. I also didn't expect it to be so light also.





Does anyone want to buy the 8.25 by any chance? Lol

Took a while but I got the rear dana 44 in, with new u bolts.






Since the tires stuck out about 4 inches, I had to make temporary flares until I can finish the quarter armor with integrated flares. So the father in law suggested using some leftover aluminum gutter material. I decided to cut a tubing to fit over the edge so the sharp edges won't hurt anyone, then fastened on the inside of wheel well with sheet metal screws.

 

What's left to finish the job is to finish welding the front truss, get the old dana 30 out, then swap in the dana 44. After it is in place, I'll have to locate a good place to weld on the track bar mount (after making sure the drag link doesn't interfere with the track bar in its range of motion). I can't wait.

 

Oh yeah since the rear dana 44 had "relocated" shock mounts on the axle, it raised the mounting point about three inches up. And now that the dana 44 is installed, I put the shocks back on. Apparently I now have 1.5" of up travel available. Didn't expect that to happen, ugh. So I'm not sure if I should massively bumpstop the rear or get shorter shocks. But that would probably mean I llhave less downtravel as well.

 

Shock hoops!

 

eh I'm not sure if I m ready to cut up the floor. Ha.

 

Nice progress!!!! Gotta love those little 4x8 HF trailers. They feel flimsy as all get out when you're standing in them loading stuff up, but I've hauled all kinds of heavy crap in mine.

 

Wow great build man. Had no idea the work you were putting into it, that doubler tcase looks amazing. How's the 35s and the trimmed fenders doing? I really like the gutter flares, look much nicer than lawn edging.

 

eh it's only temporary. Lol. And thanks.

 

So, I got the dana 30 out in less than 30 minutes. Not bad at all.






The real hard part was dragging the Dana 44 under the jeep. But I managed to get that done. The shock mounts are double shear so I had to remove the bar pins off the shocks. The coils are clamped to the bucket, so I was able to reuse the hockey puck bumpstops with the clamps.






Moved the spherical joint from the Dana 30 upper mount into the homemade mount and installed a grease zerk on top.






After some measurements with the axle in place, I was able to decide where to weld on the mount for the panhard bar on the truss. It is now in identical plane as the drag link.





^^after I took that picture, I did add a gusset to the bottom of the mount.




Had to shorten the tie rod a bit. The drag link need to be shortened as well but I ll do that at an other time.
I think the set up look pretty good for now. I would like to go high steer someday.










Painted and added the DIY diff cover that I welded.

 

Only bad news about the front swap is that the front driveshaft is fully collapsed on ride height. So I had to take it out for the time being. I ll shorten the driveshaft later.

So on my test drive I decided to go to the flexing zone next door.















Oh yea I forgot to mention that I made some temporary flares for the front to match the rear ones too. I also painted them black but I didn't take a picture yet.

I also hammered the pinch seam inside the front wheel wells so it won't shred up the tires when flexing. It took a BFH to do the job.

 

Oh yea I just ordered a 39 tooth speedometer gear.

 

Seeing builds like this is what gives me the idea of just going to 35s instead of 33s on my 4" lift.