Will a D44 swap in as a direct replacement for a D30?

I broke the welds off my D30 axle upper control arm mount on the pass. side of my 1995 XJ so am considering replacing the entire diff with either a D30 from the junkyard for cheap, or I found a 1976 Jeep Cherokee in the junk yard with a straight 6 motor and it has a stock Dana 44 on the front end.

Anyone know if this D44 will directly replace my D30 with no major mods? I don't have access to a welder so am not going to deal with the weld repair of my current broken D30.

Thoughts?

youll need to weld on all new mounts for the control arms, coils, trackbar mount, figure out the steering, different bolt pattern. so essentially, no, that will not work for you. the only bolt in 'D44' would be from a TJ rubicon. but theyre expensive and not true D44's anyway. just fix or replace your D30 with another

Thanks bud!

That's what I needed to know.

Be sure to check the gear ratio of the axle you are getting. I accidentally tried putting a 4:10 ratio in to replace of a 3:55 ratio that was in there. I went back for the rear axle to keep it at 4:10.

Going to a muffler shop and throwing the guy 40 bucks to weld it is an option too. Unless your D30 has other problems as well.

peter91118 said:

Going to a muffler shop and throwing the guy 40 bucks to weld it is an option too. Unless your D30 has other problems as well.

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It'll just break again...... Which begs the question why did it break in the first place??? I was on a moderately difficult trail I wouldn't even consider black diamond. And we were going down it backwards. (Down only)

Do you have mini-skids on the lower control arm brackets of your D30? The stock LCA mounts are welded on the outside only and will tear off. Get new mounts, weld inside and out, add mini-skids to strengthen and they will not tear off again.

Yes I am getting a diff that is trussed and gussetted so this won't happen again, but on this particular diff it was the UCA mount on the pass. side that broke.