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Ford D35 lockout parts on a Jeep D30

alaskan

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Austin, TX
My friend recently purchased a '91 Ranger with manual hubs on a D35 TTB that needed a brake job in a serious way. To make a long story short, the spindle was hosed and we ended up replacing that along with the inner/outer wheel bearings and the spindle lock nuts.

The similarities to the D30 setup are amazing. The wheel bolt pattern is the same the rotors are within 0.08" in radius, they both use 297x u-joints between the inner axle and stub shaft, both 27 spline and roughly the same length (from what I can tell) on the stub shaft.

I researched and there are a few threads on this, but none with any follow through that I can see. It appears to me that you could drill a Ford spindle for the three-bolt pattern on the Jeep knuckle and build everything out from there with the Ford parts. The XJ brake caliper could require some spacing and the XJ knuckle might need to be machined for the slightly larger bore of the Ford spindle.

Anyway, the Ford parts are as common as house flies in the junkyard because the 2WD ford spindles are the same as the 4WD spindles and they're on both Explorers and Rangers.

Has anybody seen this finished up or am I going to be forging new territory? Any gotchas that will make this a non-starter?
 
With enough effort, you can build most anything. What about axle length? Will that be a concern? It sounds like an interesting project, but I'm not sure of the advantages. If you break an axle, will you have time to jump out and disconnect the locks before it rips off the C? WARN made a kit like that, but it seemed unpopular.
 
With enough effort, you can build most anything. What about axle length? Will that be a concern? It sounds like an interesting project, but I'm not sure of the advantages. If you break an axle, will you have time to jump out and disconnect the locks before it rips off the C? WARN made a kit like that, but it seemed unpopular.

It appears that the length of the stub shafts is about the same, but that doesn't matter all that much because you'd be using Ford stub shafts. I think the advantages would be wheel bearings replaced at 25% of the cost and better mileage from running unlocked hubs on the street.

The conversions are still out there. Warn is $1100, Rugged Ridge is $900 and Mile Marker is $700. It appears to me that junkyard parts with new wheel bearings, new rotors, Mile Marker hubs and the machining would run < $400.
 
Do it... and report back with a writeup... pretty please :D

Serious question: How strong are the D35 hubs compared to the Warn kit? or any other hub?? If they can stand up to 33s or 35s and a locker then it would be totally worth investigating. If your gonna end up popping a hub every time you go wheeling then... eh.
 
Do it... and report back with a writeup... pretty please :D

Serious question: How strong are the D35 hubs compared to the Warn kit? or any other hub?? If they can stand up to 33s or 35s and a locker then it would be totally worth investigating. If your gonna end up popping a hub every time you go wheeling then... eh.

I don't know anything about the relative strength of hubs. I'm not sure what breaks on them, either. The only vehicle I've had with manual lockouts was an '83 FSJ and it had Warn premiums (the metal ones) and they never broke. My friend plans to beat on the Ranger pretty hard so I'll sit back and see how those cheesy factory manual hubs hold up.
 
Another take on this (probably way off base) - how similar is the spacing and taper for the balljoints? Could you maybe swap everything balljoints-out (knuckle, bearings, spindle, caliper, rotor, etc) and use the balljoints, steering, and U-joint as the "interface" between the Jeep and Ford parts?

*if* it all lines up, it'll work great because the u-joint and ball joints are already on the same axis. If it doesn't, it won't work at all...
 
It appears that the length of the stub shafts is about the same, but that doesn't matter all that much because you'd be using Ford stub shafts. I think the advantages would be wheel bearings replaced at 25% of the cost and better mileage from running unlocked hubs on the street.

The conversions are still out there. Warn is $1100, Rugged Ridge is $900 and Mile Marker is $700. It appears to me that junkyard parts with new wheel bearings, new rotors, Mile Marker hubs and the machining would run < $400.

Don't expect better mileage from unlocked hubs. If there is a difference, it's negligible and nearly immeasurable. The primary reason to perform this conversion should be to reduce wear, increase strength, and decrease the costs of maintenance.
 
Another take on this (probably way off base) - how similar is the spacing and taper for the balljoints? Could you maybe swap everything balljoints-out (knuckle, bearings, spindle, caliper, rotor, etc) and use the balljoints, steering, and U-joint as the "interface" between the Jeep and Ford parts?

*if* it all lines up, it'll work great because the u-joint and ball joints are already on the same axis. If it doesn't, it won't work at all...

The balljoints arrangement looks completely different and so are the knuckles. I think going from the spindle-out with Ford parts is the only option.
 
Don't expect better mileage from unlocked hubs. If there is a difference, it's negligible and nearly immeasurable. The primary reason to perform this conversion should be to reduce wear, increase strength, and decrease the costs of maintenance.

That's probably true. There are people who claim that removing a factory roof rack is good for a 1/2 mpg but that's complete nonsense so I won't be surprised if the hub efficiency thing is false as well. The strength difference appears to be negligible. The stub shafts are the same diameter and nobody seems to really break the unit bearing hubs on Cherokees anyway. I will say that the Ranger seems to bind less on sharp turns than a Cherokee. Not sure if all that adds up to a worthwhile improvement or not. It's just hard to not think about it when you see how close these parts are in person.
 
I don't know anything about the relative strength of hubs. I'm not sure what breaks on them, either. The only vehicle I've had with manual lockouts was an '83 FSJ and it had Warn premiums (the metal ones) and they never broke. My friend plans to beat on the Ranger pretty hard so I'll sit back and see how those cheesy factory manual hubs hold up.

These conversions are much stronger than the factory pressed, ball bearing units. They use two tapered roller bearings at each wheel and the spindle design is much stronger. Cast rotors are stronger. Mounting and mating surfaces have larger surface areas and therefore run cooler and transmit loads more widely and evenly. Properly engineered hubs will sacrifice the hub itself rather than allow the load to damage structurally vital components.

The reason most modern vehicles include pressed ball bearing units is they are much cheaper to manufacture and are easier to troubleshoot since dealerships can simply replace the entire unit. This also allows for increased profits when replacements are necessary. ;)
 
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These conversions are much stronger than the factory pressed, ball bearing units. They use two tapered roller bearings at each wheel and the spindle design is much stronger. Cast rotors are stronger. Mounting and mating surfaces have larger surface areas and therefore run cooler and transmit loads more widely and evenly. Properly engineered hubs will sacrifice the hub itself rather than allow the load to damage structurally vital components.

The reason most modern vehicles include pressed ball bearing units is they are much cheaper to manufacture and are easier to troubleshoot since dealerships can simply replace the entire unit. This also allows for increased profits when replacements are necessary. ;)

The tapered roller bearings do appear to be huge relative to the ball bearings inside the XJ unit bearing. The Ford spindle is machined steel at least (probably not forged, though) and appears to be pretty strong relative to unit design. Heck, the Ford spindle alone is a $200 part if that gives you any idea of the beef difference between the two. And replacing bearings on the Ford with Timkens is $20/wheel instead of $80/wheel on the Jeep.
 
$80 for a unit bearing?! damn son where are you buying them. at napa with the lifetime warranty they are around $150 each. autozone still sells them for $137 with a one year warranty.


another question about that. i wonder how the ford spindles and hubs would work with a wj knuckle
 
Please try this, then report back.
I've been curious about the compatibility of these two axles after helping a buddy rebuild his 35 TTB, and then reading about the compatibility of Dana 60 and Dana 50 TTB parts.

http://www.therangerstation.com has some good info on the TTB 35, if you need a resource for information.
 
I wouldn't care so much about the gas milage. I would like it so I could run factory caster angles and not have drive shaft vibrations and so I wouldn't have to listen to my noisy gears! So somone should try it.


Mf'n this.
 
$80 for a unit bearing?! damn son where are you buying them. at napa with the lifetime warranty they are around $150 each. autozone still sells them for $137 with a one year warranty.


another question about that. i wonder how the ford spindles and hubs would work with a wj knuckle

Timkens @ $80, others are higher and some made in China ones for < $40. If you google "rock auto discount code" they always have a 5% off floating around.

http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/x,carcode,1180415,parttype,1636

As far as working on a WJ knuckle, the unit bearings look the same as the XJ so I don't really see a problem with that.

I wouldn't care so much about the gas milage. I would like it so I could run factory caster angles and not have drive shaft vibrations and so I wouldn't have to listen to my noisy gears! So somone should try it.

I hadn't even thought of that for guys with a lot of lift and screwed up caster angles.



I need to call the junkyard today because the prices on the parts I want aren't on their list. I'll probably buy an entire HP D30 in good condition and sell it from the knuckles in, but I have no desire to pull an entire D35 TTB because nobody will want the parts I don't need.
 
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If the balljoints are setup completely different you are left with the Jeep knuckle. How are you going to bolt to the spindle to the knuckle? I would love to see this done but this seems to be the deal breaker.
 
If the balljoints are setup completely different you are left with the Jeep knuckle. How are you going to bolt to the spindle to the knuckle? I would love to see this done but this seems to be the deal breaker.

I intend to drill the ford spindle for the 3 bolt pattern on the Jeep knuckle or drill the Jeep knuckle for the 5 bolt Ford pattern.

If you've ever seen an early '90s D35 TTB spindle you'd see how similar it is to the ones that come in the conversion kits. I think it would be easiest to drill the Ford spindle, and if it the holes look too close together I'll just weld up the 5 bolt pattern.

As I mentioned, the spindles retail at around $150+ EACH so that's one of the major reasons the kits are so expensive. However, junkyards are full of them because they're the same on 2wd and 4wd rangers/explorers from 90-97.
 
Problem you will face is that mounting the spindle to the unitbearing face on the knuckle will probably throw the u-joint position out of whack.
I hope this pans out tho, good luck.
 
Problem you will face is that mounting the spindle to the unitbearing face on the knuckle will probably throw the u-joint position out of whack.
I hope this pans out tho, good luck.

I'm not really sure if that's the case. On a non-ABS stub shaft there's some room for error as to where the stub shaft lands on the spindle bearing. That bearing just centers the stub shaft in the spindle while all of the load gets carried by the spindle and axle bearings. Heck, there's a bunch of guys running delrin (plastic) spindle bearings in offroad racing applications so I don't really see this being a big problem.
 
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