d44 and d35 drum swap?

I am building up an xj d44, and eventually i plan to go to a disc brake, probably the 8.8 brake swap. right now though, time and money is tight so...

so anyways, onto the question. right now i have a d35 (1996) with drum brakes on it, and the 44 has no brakes. will the drum brakes direct swap onto the dana 44? or is it more complicated then that.

Thanks

shortbussrydah said:

I am building up an xj d44, and eventually i plan to go to a disc brake, probably the 8.8 brake swap. right now though, time and money is tight so...

so anyways, onto the question. right now i have a d35 (1996) with drum brakes on it, and the 44 has no brakes. will the drum brakes direct swap onto the dana 44? or is it more complicated then that.

Thanks

Click to expand...

It's more complicated than that.

You need the original backing plates and drums from the 44. If you don't have those, you can use the backing plates and drums from an '88 or '89 XJ with a NON-C-clip D35, but you'll have to open up the hole in the backing plate to fit the larger wheel bearings and seal on the D44 axle shafts. This is actually pretty easy. Use a die grinder to cut a bunch of notches all around the diameter of the hole, and then break the pieces off with a vice grips. I did both backing plates on mine in under 30 minutes.

Also, you'll need the axle seal retaining plates for the XJ D44. TJ 44 retaining plates do not work, so make sure you get the right thing. I used Non c-clip d35 retaining plates and it worked very, very well.

The '96 D35 drum brakes willl not work at all. Throw 'em away, along with the rest of the axle. Make sure you get the e-brake cables off the donor '88 also.

I just did this exact swap on my '96, and that was the whole thing I had to go through.

ahh sh**... well couldnt you just lie to me and tell me everything will work fine? haha.

Anyways, thanks for the response. junkyard here we come

If you have no brakes and no D-44 backing plates, buy some junkyard Jeep D-35, Ford Crown Vic, or Ford Explorer disk brakes and install those on the D-44.