Newbie Front Axle question
 

My wife (tjjeepjeep) and I are looking at starting to build her TJ for more serious offroading/rock crawling. Would a Ford F350 Dana 50 front axle be a good swap, or would it be better to just get a Dana 60? Thanks for the help.

What rear axle are you thinking and how big are you talking? tire size 35's, 37's, 40's

The D50 is not a bad axle just not enough support and you would be limited in your swap. and the cost would not be worth it.

37's or under build a good D44 or a 9"

Parts for the 50 are not as easy to locate and the wheel bearing assembly is weak. ROCKWELLS!:D :D :D :D :D

I'm assuming we are going with 37" or larger tires. I found one right now that is going for $510 on ebay with no reserve, thats why I was asking. It's still early though in the auction, doesn't end until the 30th.

You wouldnt happen to know where to get some ROCKWELLS would you? :D

Nope, no rockwells. Don't even know what they are. no nope nuh uh

Yeah Yeah!!!

Also a good idea is to learn to drive before going big......all these people go on one or two rides and the think they just need to be bigger. Some of the best rides can be on 31's and stock axles.


But if you must a good swap for a TJ is a set of F-350 axle 77-79 D60's

Let me give you some back ground. The jeep is a daily driver right now with a 3" lift and 33's, stock axles. We took it to Natural Bridge and it did better than I thought it would being mostly stock, but I didn't take it on the harder trails. Mostly went on the bypasses, although it did climb the hill to the lake with relative ease. Tjjeepjeep (my wife), rode with Truggy all day Saturday, and fell in love with climbing the harder stuff, so that is why im looking at building it. I agree we need to take it out more, but scared to take it on the harder stuff with it being her DD right now.

I'm looking for input from the board on what route we should take to build it, in stages, or go for the gusto, to eventually become a rock crawler/trail rig only. Is it worth it to build it in steps, beefing up the stock stuff, then spending the money on dana 44's, only switching to a dana 60 cause you want to go places the 44 wont go. It seems more cost effective to build it once, with the right parts, instead of trial by error. A few members have told me to build it to your final requirements. If you want 37's build it for 37's, if you want bigger build it bigger from the start, to save the money.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. :D

The dana 50 that I posted about, was just doing a search on ebay and came across it. I hadn't heard much about them so thats why I asked. Need to gain the knowledge to find the answers!!

Just my opinion so take it for what it's worth .... find an 8.8 out of a 95+ Explorer for the rear and put a full locker in it . Chromo the front 30 and put a soft locker in it .

This set up will allow you to run 36"-37" meats and still DD and you'll be able to enjoy it more then once a month on a trail run. wheel it like this and get used to it and then in a year or so go full width 60's and make it a trail only rig. You will be able to recover most of your $$ by selling the built 30 and 8.8 combo , it's a very popular set up for a reason.

The price on 8.8's has come down drastically in the last few months , they can be found all over the web from $100 -$250 , Add a link kit and spring buckets for another Couple of hundred bucks , $400 for a locker and for under a grand your done with the rear ( and say good buy to that POS D-35)

For about $700 you can boost up that 30 and be as strong as a 44 so why bother swaping it out .

This is the state that I'm in now ! why swap my set up for anything but a 60 combo. A HP44/60 combo is not going to to yield much more strength. I've had my eyes on a 60/60 combo for a while now and one of these days the guy might take my offer. until then the 30/8.8 combo stays. I have beat the wizz out of mine and I don't even have chromo's in the front.

OK flame on ! :D

I'm with Sarge on this one.


OK a DD but how many times did have you had it offroad?

It's been offroad once so far.

1 time!


my 2 cents worth Learn how to drive it before you go that big. Sounds like you have a good start with 33's and the the lift. Hold up for a while and when you break something you improve on it. By all means get all the bumpers, winches and protection you can. Skids area great start.

Alot of people do this they jump the gun and just go big and do not ever learn how to drive and pick the right line and learn from there mistakes. They just go big and think they can run over whatever they want. And they drive like pigs!

I have the skids for both diffs right now, contemplating the gas tank skid right now

Let me also add , when I first started wheeling I started out with a $300 Cherokee with a small lift and 31's . I wheeled it only , NO DD.
I then got a K5 with 36's and DD and wheeled it until I cut it apart and built the Yellow Cherokee that Jacob ( Hybrid ) has now. When I first built it, it was not my DD but I did get it out and drive it alot in between wheeling trips. I did this until it just was not practical to drive around.
This is when it would sit in the garage or along side the house with flat tires , leaked various fluids on the drive and I'm sure gave the nieghbors something to talk about.
It would sit for a month or two and then I would get it ready for a trip and drive it around the block half a dozen times , load it up on the trailer and take it wheeling . Returning home was easy just pull it off the trailer and forget about it for another month or so.
I finally decided that I really like driving them from time to time so I sold it for a more streetable version. Now that I have the Wrangler I am trying really hard to keep it streetable and as of right now it is my DD. I just like driving it , you have to admit that nobody buys a jeep because they are comfortable and have loads of room and they get good gas mileage !!!:eek: :eek: they buy them because they are fun to drive !!!
So you have to ask yourself and only yourself , what do you want out of your rig? Are you ready to basically park it for months ( if so then go for it and built it big and bad ) or do you still want to take it to Krogers and the parts store on a regular basis.

Guess I need to chime in, since I'm the one that drives it daily. ;) And has the offroad addiction. :rolleyes: Crap, I think I just said it's my fault....:(

DD and work is 20 miles one way, half of it highway. But you're right, Sarge (you can quote me that I said that too ;) ). It's fun to drive and can't imagine driving anything else. (Ain't nothing better than driving with the windows out when it's raining, the looks people give you are priceless.)

The draw of a trail rig is just that. I break it, and I'm not pushed to fix it while wondering about how I'm getting to work each day. Other thing to toss into the discussion is, for arguments sake, lets say we pay labor for anything that breaks (ok maybe not everything but humor me). Would that change the wheel the DD idea for anyone? Downside is that I'd need a truck to get it to the trail.

Ya'll have the experience and have lived these decisions. So bring on the feedback.

The problem I've experienced with having my Jeeps as a daily driver are related to problems like wobble from lost wheel weights, bent/wore out steering/etc in the front end. A harder wheeling trip really takes a toll on "stock" steering components with big tires; especially if you didn't even trailer it there - 25 mpg all the way back from Haspin is a drag, lol.

If you're gonna wheel your daily driver, be sure you have a backup car if you break something major or roll your jeep. I've had & seen my fair share of stuff break that "cant" be fixed in time for work the next day. Little stuff like broken u-joints can lead to other stuff breaking when the parts whip around.

Wheeling anything & worrying about paying labor (and having someone available to do labor) & wheeling is nt a good combination in my opinion. Especially if it is your daily driver; are you gonna be able to find a shop open on Sunday (cause you need it for work Monday) to work on a filthy jeep after you broke it on Saturday?

Yea, I'm afraid the owner will laugh hysterically and hang up on me when I call in that situation..:D

Another point I want to note is that you never want to work on a jeep right after you wheel it cause that's when it's most filthy. If you dont have apressure washer already; start looking around for one cause you're gonna need it. I have to wear goggles most of the time under mine cause all the dirt never comes off the jeep until you need to hit something with a hammer; then it's manetically attracted to your eyes.

After years of wrenching on a muddy rig your eyes will develop another layer of protection on em and all will be good.

i hate working on a dirty rig...

but i also don't like pressure washing a rig. it's not good for those delicate parts, wheel seals, pinion seals, etc...

i use an old fashion gardenhose and a bucket of soap and water. that way, while washing it by hand, i am inspecting it, and seeing other problems i might look past if i were just blasting it with 2500 psi of water.

i read in the back of a mag. a while back about putting a lawn sprinkler under your rig and letting it run for a while to get the mud off the bottom. never tried it but it sounds kinda interesting. jfiscus is right to, its seems no matter how well you clean it your still gonna get crap in your eyes.

I could flat out not afford to take my Heep across the street if I had to pay for repairs !!!! with that being said I would then find a cheap DD like an old XJ or rice burner with 1/2 a million miles on it and use it only for a back up DD. I sometime take it for granted that I can do all of my own repairs and have a pile of spare junk stashed around the garage. :D

History of my CJ-7
 

Wow lots of great information given out!

My Jeep was a stocker at first. I wheeled it about 2 mopnths and got a locker for the rear. You would be amazed where this alone can get you through. I then put a EZ locker up front Stage 1 and wheeled it till I did my Scout Dana 44 swap on 35's Stage 2. My next step was 3/4 chevy 44 with Corporate 14 bolt in the rear. Both Locked and loaded with 35's.Stage 3 Then I went full bore with the current setup of 60 up front and 14 bolt rear on 40" total rig rebuild. Stage 4

First Stage was about $2500 ( sold for $1800)
Second stage $1500 (sold for $2500)
Third stage $2000 (sold for $2000)
4th stage $6500 (current setup)
total $11500-$7500 for a difference of $4000 spent over 10 years or so

All these stages incorporated tires, rims gears and lockers for the most part.

Point is, I have been here and done that! My opinion is Build it once and only once but after some experience wheelin it while.

Or do what sarge said and not have all the other expenses in between like I did.

Looking back on it though...it did teach me a lot of the skills I posses today in doing all those different swaps and buildups

I do not think it is a good idea to pay someone to work on your jeep if you are going to wheel it hard.

Reason why is that you do not know how it was built. You most likely not know how to fixed it if it brakes out on the trail. That means someone else is going to have to fix it for you so you can get home. I know there are a few people that have rigs built for them b/c of not haveing time to build it them selfs but for a new wheeler they should try to do there mods or get a buddy to help.(there are lots of people on here that would help out just for a cold drink and a smile)

As for what and how to build you jeep. I would go with sarge and jet. Put a bigger rear axle(8.8, 9in :( dana 44) and with the lift and tires you have you will be able to go a lot of places. Add lockers and 34-36in tires and you will be able to go most places.

Thanks guys for all the great information. Now Lisa and I need to decide what route we want to go. One good thing is I have done quite a bit of mechanic work on other cars just not the jeep, so I might be asking questions if i do work on it when it breaks.