Ford d44 & 9" width

I'm looking at buying a 78 ford pickup with a HP D44 and a 9" in the rear. I want to put the axles under my cherokee, but can't decide to leave them full width and buy wheels with more backspacing (I'm going to need new wheels for the diffrent lug pattern anyway) or try and cut them down. The cops in my area are well known for pulling over trucks and jeeps with tires sticking out too much past the flares, so my question is, what would you do?

These will be about 6" wider than stock plus the amount the backspacing is different from the stock XJ wheel. So if you use an off the shelf 3-3/4 backspaced wheel on these axles you will be around 9" wider.

Thats a lot of fender flair.

Israel said:

I'm looking at buying a 78 ford pickup with a HP D44 and a 9" in the rear. I want to put the axles under my cherokee, but can't decide to leave them full width and buy wheels with more backspacing (I'm going to need new wheels for the diffrent lug pattern anyway) or try and cut them down. The cops in my area are well known for pulling over trucks and jeeps with tires sticking out too much past the flares, so my question is, what would you do?

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If you go with deeply offset wheels (17x8, 5" offset), you can get a fender to nearly cover the tire.

Make sure you buy 17" wheels, however, as you will not be able to run a high steer arm with more than 4" of BS on a 15" wheel.

Keep in mind that the Ford front axle you are contemplating is 7" wider than stock. The rear is more like 5".

CRASH

This is what I did do:

Those are 78 Ford axles and 33x12.5 tires on 15x8 rims with ~4" of backspacing. Overall width is about 80". I used some scraps of aluminum door flashing to help cover a couple more inches. Bushwhacker flares are in my future.
on a side note, are you going to be keeping the Ford radius arms? If not, you may not want to purchase an earlier axle that has welded-on radius arm mounts rather than the cast-in ones. The cast-in ones would be a super-pain to remove. And if you narrow the front axle, might it be easier to buy the narrower 9" from a pre-78 Bronco and upgrade it?

Jeep on!
--Pete

More pics of my truck:
http://www.picturetrail.com/petermontie

Israel said:

I'm looking at buying a 78 ford pickup with a HP D44 and a 9" in the rear. I want to put the axles under my Cherokee, but can't decide to leave them full width and buy wheels with more backspacing (I'm going to need new wheels for the different lug pattern anyway) or try and cut them down. The cops in my area are well known for pulling over trucks and jeeps with tires sticking out too much past the flares, so my question is, what would you do?

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PETE: I`m assuming youve got the radius arms still on there?

BIG98XJ said:

PETE: I'm assuming youve got the radius arms still on there?

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Yup. I used them purely for the simplicity (but mostly because I had neither the funds nor the equipment needed to do it right). Flex is not my front suspension's forte. Thank goodness I've got a Comanche! The rear flexes like mad.
Jeep on!
--Pete

Would it be worth trying to narrow the 9" housing to fit some warn EB shafts? I'm just thinking of availability. I see tons of mid to late 70's ford pickups being parted out, but hardly any EBs.

You can try your luck with car-part.com Or maybe a Ford car has a matching housing? That's a long shot, but it may be possible since you'll be replacing the shafts and carrier anyhow. I've found that Jeff's Bronco Graveyard is a good source of info. broncograveyard.com (I just ran over there and the site shows empty early Bronco housings for $75)
I like the fullwidth axles. I just happened to run out of money before getting the extended flares. Chances are that when funds are available, I'll be buying the aforementioned Ford truck front axle with the welded-on mounts and starting from scatch for a fourlink longarm suspension and the current axle will go to my buddy to get rid of the TTB on his 86 Bronco. Narrowing axles just sounds like a TON of work compared to installing the flares. But, to each his own.
Jeep on!
--Pete