I want to do a swap of my rear axle with a Ford 8.8 with all the bells and whistles. With that said, I feel it wouldn't be beneficial if I didn't swap the front axle to something stronger as well. So my question is: What's a good, strong front axle that would be comparable to the 8.8 rear? I'm only running 31's at the moment, but sometime in the future, I want to lift an additional 1.5" and run 32's. Suggestions? Concerns? Comments? Anything is appreciated.

 

Your stock axles will hold 32s fine unless you beat the crap out of it and no axle will hold up to that. Swap the front shafts with 95 and later versions with the larger joints and they'll hold 35s.

 

An 8.8" is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to big for 32's

 

If anything swap to a 29 spl 8.25. It's bolt in and will handle 32's like nothing.

 

I'm not dead-set on the 8.8, but the reason I am aiming towards that is because I want rear disc brakes and trac-lok. I've heard if you can find one on an 1996+ Eddie Bauer edition Ford Explorer, that it comes with both. As far as a front axle, I want either a Dana 44 (though those are hard as hell to find) or a stronger Dana 30. I've heard that Chrysler's Dana 30 front is a little stronger. Is this true?

 

A Dana 30 is a Dana 30. Depending on how much fab skills you have it could end up costing you more to swap in an 8.8 then doing a disc conversion on your current axle. 8.8 is a stout axle it will laugh at 32's. I would stick with what you have and upgrade to 760x u joints up front then call it good.

 

30 is a 30. like stated above. get the larger 297 u joint shafts for the front. with the money you spend to swap out a 8.8 just to have a limited slip, you can buy a 29 spline 8.25, have a direct bolt in swap and buy a lunchbox locker. find some used grand cherokee dana 35 disk brakes and be done. 8.8 is pretty overkill for 32's. seems like a lot of work for not a lot.

 

This is why I made this post, lol.
I know nothing about axles so this is good feed back. Thanks guys!

One more thing... what is a "lunchbox locker"?

 

Ratcheting locker like powertrax or lock-rite

 

or aussie. They fit into the stock carrier. Much less expensive than a full locker and they work very well. I wanna say my 8.25 locker was 299$

 

Oh ok. So, from what I've gathered from this thread is that y'all are recommending replacing the D35 with the C8.25 and replacing the D30's U-joints with stronger ones, correct?

 

Basically yes. You can't just change u joints though, you change the entire shaft, the newer 297 joints are physically larger.

 

Or look into the future and see that you really want to run 35's and should spring for a d30/8.8 combo. The 88' d30 housing with 97+ shafts are the best setup for cheap to run 35's in my book. Always a good idea to carry spare shafts

Here's a whole ford 8.8

Then again, 35's are doable on d30/c8.25. All depends on where/what wheel you do with your jeep

 

Another question I have: Regardless of what axle combo I go with, what gearing should I go for? My current axles have the stock 3.55's. Is it even worth changing out? At the moment, my rig is my daily driver and I wheel every now and then.

 

I think I may have answered my own question thanks to a quick Google search.

I'll post to help others with this question: