50.Cal

So I picked up my 94 Grand Cherokee about a year ago. The guy before me put a 3'' lift on it, 32' mud terrane with rubicon rims. He also said he had a Dana 44 in the rear. This is my first jeep, I got excited. I bought it for $1500. I had the axel rebuilt about 2 months ago, $1200. I thought it was worth it because it is a Dana 44. Shame on me for not doing my research because yesterday I was looking up prices for Dana 44's and it turns out the Dana 44A, which I have from a 98 Grand Cherokee, is a pile of crap? Im bummed out because I paid way to much probably to have a crap pile rebuilt. Are they as bad as everyone says? I guess I won't take it off road any time coon. At this point I would sell my Grand and pick up a regular Cherokee but I don't think I would get anything out of my Grand.

OverlandZJ

It'd cost you much more than 1200 to install something stronger than the 44a.. don't beat the hell out of it and you should be fine. Perhaps a truss in your future.

50.Cal

That's probably a good idea. I'll try to find one for it
.

mrshaft696

whats up john!, good to see you around....


anyway to the OP I saw these the other day....


http://mountainvistafabrication.com/...ferential-skid

50.Cal

Its the aluminum center that makes it weak right? So the gears inside can't withstand the pressure of offload driving it it tears the insides up. Am I right on that part of it?

OverlandZJ

I peek in regularly..

Help me find a clean Niner.. no I don't want your wife's.

Yes, it tends to distort being true.. wearing internals. More so than an iron diff. I ended up building my axle from an XJ44. Truss will help prevent this..

andrewmp6

If you truss it and run a skid plate under it people have run up to 37s on them.The weak point is where the axle tubes meet the center which is why the truss fixes this problem.

50.Cal

Does anyone a place to get a truss? I found a few that said they were for a 44a but in the description it says it's only for a regular Dana.

andrewmp6

zj https://www.tntcustoms.com/jeep_part...zj_tnt_customs
And for a bolt on skid plate http://mountainvistafabrication.com/

andrewmp6

If you get bored thumb around on http://mallcrawlin.com/forum/content.php its a forum of hardcore crawlers built out of zjs and wjs mostly.