Front dana 60 front, whos got one in a 6-10" lift

just as it says. Whos got a Drivers side drop Dana 60 (or even D44 would be of some help also) in the front of a 10" lift or less XJ? Prefere to hear from those that have the steering box in the stock location...

PICTURES PLEASE!

I am torn on what to do and dont want to rework the steering completly to get this to fit.

Currently looking in to a D44HP or a rockcrusher HP44 center.

Also what is yoru WMS and what mods did you have to do to get this to fit?

Thank you For all help..

I have a (what i believe is) a 62" WMS waggoneer front dana 44 in mine. done with leaf springs up front. wheel base is stretched about an inch or two i think. any other questions, feel free to ask.

xj_man_646 said:

I have a (what i believe is) a 62" WMS waggoneer front dana 44 in mine. done with leaf springs up front. wheel base is stretched about an inch or two i think. any other questions, feel free to ask.

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Well thank you for posting, but that is really not even close to what I would be doing, the disire to help is great though! Only with leafs you dont have the track bar to deal with as I do and the D44 low pinion makes it even easier.

I am mostly concerned with the track bar mount at frame. the steering setup, the pinion to exhaust interferance, and the position of the center in relation to the jeep.

Something like this?





I'm in the process of fixing fixing my locker that's why it is tore apart. But it makes getting pictures a little easier.

Thats a full width 79 Ford HP D60. Rustys 6.5" coils with 1.75" poly spacers. But the springs are about 4 years old and with the winch they are starting to settle sume.

The exhaust doesn't hit the driveline but it gets real close.

Here is an old pic during the actual axle swap. You can see the bridge I build for the DS upper control arm mount. It was bascally a bolt in job once I had the bracket design.

awesome! thats what I need, more of it too..

So this D60HP fit in with out any interferance? Is that a drop track bar bracket on the frame too? Is the steering box in the stock location? Is that a standard piman arm? when you did the swap then... All you had to do was fab brackets and truss and you didnt have to mod any Xj portions?

I already had long arms so I delibertatly made the 60 brackets match as close as possible to the D30. The vertical speration is a little wider on the axle so the Upper mounts are a little closer together so the upper control arm angles stay the same.

The axle is pushed forward a couple inches. As you can see I cannot go any further without running into binding issues with the drag link.

The power steering box is in the stock location. That is a grand cherokee pitman arm so it give 1" extra drop. I need to go to a WJ arm to bring it up closer with the track bar.

The track bar is a custom unit with a 2.5" JJ on the frame side and a 2.5" poly on the axle side. the actual mount has been brought closer to the frame to give me a little more up travel. During compression the track bar mount fits right in the hole infront of the coil and between the steering arm and upper control arm bracket. It all gets pritty tight when it is compressed.

Basically when I did the swap originally it was a bolt in deal. My long arms were custom but close to a Clayton long arm setup. I spent at least a month measuring and fabing the brackets. I think it took one weekend to actually get it under the jeep and on tires when it came time for the swap though. Propper planning makes things go a lot easier.

Well, I just put in a 9" front with a True Hi 9 3rd member and it's pretty large. I run about 7.5" of lift and it all fit together ok. Running the TNT longarm kit. Using a ZJ pitman arm, RE Track Bar bracket, and JKS build your own track bar kit/bracket. The housing is from Currie and is 63.5 WMS. The center section is a bit more toward the passenger side than stock so I did have to mod the exhaust a bit, but nothing bad. I just replaced a 90 bend right after the down tube with a 45 bend to move it away from the drive shaft. For the coil buckets, I used the RE ones and moved them up 2", along with the lower CA brackets to get the TNT arms to fit right. Think the axle is about 1.5" forward or so. Here's some pics (before I fixed the exhaust):

jmop said:

Something like this?





I'm in the process of fixing fixing my locker that's why it is tore apart. But it makes getting pictures a little easier.

Thats a full width 79 Ford HP D60. Rustys 6.5" coils with 1.75" poly spacers. But the springs are about 4 years old and with the winch they are starting to settle sume.

The exhaust doesn't hit the driveline but it gets real close.

Here is an old pic during the actual axle swap. You can see the bridge I build for the DS upper control arm mount. It was bascally a bolt in job once I had the bracket design.

Click to expand...

Forgot to ask whats the WMS of this axle?

69" WMS to WMS. When it was full boddied I ran Hummer double beadlocks with 7" backspacing and 1.5" spacers to clear the steering. I was sitting around 79" (give or take, it's been a while) outside to outside of the tire with the 39.5" TSL's I had on at the time.

As you can see I had stock TJ flares and about half the tire stuck out in the front. The rear is a 14 bolt, 67" WMS-WMS with no spacers so it ended up just a little wider then stock.

you've seen my 44...

its about 2" forward...

also - the TNT customs trackbar bracket moves the trackbar forward about 2" over the RE bracket... - really handy, works great on my rig...

jmop said:

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I've got nearly the same picture from mine.



Probably not much help, given that it's passenger drop...however if anything looks like it might be helpful let me know and I can give ya any info you need.

Gasman said:

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Do you have D30 outers on there?

I don't really understand your question, in it's exactly what so many here have done.
Anyway, here's a photo of mine:



I've got about 6" lift & 6" compression travel, 63.25" WMS/WMS.

Everything gets close, but nothing hits.
Axle is pushed forward to the point that the tie rod is 1/4" from the pitman under full compression. Stock pitman.
I've since redesigned the TB bracket on the frame to use a rod end so I could get a little more up travel with full turn lock to lock under full compression.
The biggest thing to look out for us DS/exhaust clearance with the passenger side stuffed & the drivers side at full droop. With 44 inner knuckles this is easy, with 60 knuckles there's little room for error.

P

91 Jeep Project said:

Do you have D30 outers on there?

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I think those are Dana 44 export knuckles

P

Paul S said:

I don't really understand your question, in it's exactly what so many here have done.
Anyway, here's a photo of mine:



I've got about 6" lift & 6" compression travel, 63.25" WMS/WMS.

Everything gets close, but nothing hits.
Axle is pushed forward to the point that the tie rod is 1/4" from the pitman under full compression. Stock pitman.
I've since redesigned the TB bracket on the frame to use a rod end so I could get a little more up travel with full turn lock to lock under full compression.
The biggest thing to look out for us DS/exhaust clearance with the passenger side stuffed & the drivers side at full droop. With 44 inner knuckles this is easy, with 60 knuckles there's little room for error.

P

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Well It looked close up there on mine and then someone here with some high dollar insect front end told me that I might have to relocate the box forward and redo the frame side track bar bracket due to the much larger housing. SO I wanted to make sure that is is not very common or if it was in fact written in ink and for sure.

Now that I see others are not having a issue fitting a 60 front or even 9" I will prolly loose the 44 center and 60 outer stuff idea and just go all 60.

Thanks

ROBERTK said:

Well It looked close up there on mine and then someone here with some high dollar insect front end told me that I might have to relocate the box forward and redo the frame side track bar bracket due to the much larger housing. SO I wanted to make sure that is is not very common or if it was in fact written in ink and for sure.

Now that I see others are not having a issue fitting a 60 front or even 9" I will prolly loose the 44 center and 60 outer stuff idea and just go all 60.

Thanks

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I don't know anyone that has relocated their box.

Keep in mind that the 60 outer stuff makes it much tighter, at least if you want to keep it relatively narrow. I've never messed with a 60 center, so I don't know what they will do to you, but I'm sure you'll have to be real precise about where you place the center in relation to the short & long side.

P

well I am hoping to keep the stock width (what that is I have no clue 66-69?) or do a rockcrusher center since they are much smaller but look to have alot more tube sleeve, and then buy a 60 housing with kingpins and reuse all the knuckle out stuff. or so I am thinking.

Here are the brakets I am hoping will work out. Very compact.


puts the spring, LCA and shock all on one bracket and less the 3" total tube needed.

But then the more I research who knows..

Those 9" centers have got to be larger then a D60 right? But since they are plate metal I guess it helps in the fab of mounts and such.

91 Jeep Project said:

Do you have D30 outers on there?

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The inner C's are XJ D30's. I used a Tera knuckle to get the high steer and the 30 spline Warn 5.5" hub kit. I was just going to go the regular D44 knuckle route but stumbled into a smokin deal on the 30 spline hub kit. I had the Tera knuckle on my 30 so it made sense to just keep that setup as it worked well. I have wheeled the crap out of the 30 in the southwest rocks the last 10 years and never had any balljoint issues so I'm not worried.

Depending on if you are going with full hydro, high steer, etc, you might have to move your trac bar? I did to clear the drivers side from flexing into the trac bar. I have 8" of lift and you can view an old picture of my jeep in my signature. I am currently installing a ford hp60.

It's easy to fit a D44 in there, many of us have done that with no real issues. The D60 is going to be tight, but it's been done. The key is just to mock things up carefully, and take LOTS of measurements. I do think you'd have a little easier time fitting in a D44 center section with D60 outers, that 60 pig is huge.

My D60 is 63" WMS to WMS, and there was room for the coil seats right next to the inner C's. Unless you shove the axle forward a lot you shouldn't have trouble with the track bar frame mount in the stock location. My axle is pushed forward 4" and that creates a real problem with both the track bar and the tie rod. My tie rod has to be in front of the pitman arm rather than behind it, and this creates clearance problems at full stuff if you want the tie rod on top of the high steer arms. To move the axle forward the steering gear should also be moved forward, but that's nearly impossible to do on an XJ.

I haven't figured out yet exactly when it's doing it, but my D60 pinion is hitting the exhaust, and that's with the axle 4" forward. I'm changing the both the lower and upper links and I expect to resolve that situation. Mocking up and cycling everything with no shocks and springs installed, while the brackets are just tacked on, is the key to close clearance.

If you have access to a HP44 center section, and are willing to run an ARB, I think you'd be real happy both fitting and wheeling that combination. I don't see breaking a front HP44 ring and pinion. Very few break HP60 gears in the rear, so they probably are overkill in the front, especially with the tires you'll run on a full bodied XJ (I'm thinking 37's).