Dana 44 brakes vs 8.25 brakes

'96 XJ, 31's, SYE, 3" lift. Been running this for about 3 years.

I was ready to begin a disc brake conversion on my 27 spline 8.25. A local junkyard has an XJ Dana 44 for $200.

How good are the brakes on a D44? Should I do the disc swap on my 8.25, which is in great shape, or go for the D44?

Eventually I want to run 33's. No rocks. Mostly wooded trails.

Thanks,
Geoff

get the 44, do the disk swap while your jeep is still drivable. fix anything the 44 needs... when its ready, swap it in and plumb it in under an hour, drive away happy.

44.

The D35/8.25 drum brakes are 10" x 1.75", the D44 brakes are 10" x 2.5". Discs could still be better than the D44, but I doubt you'd ever notice the difference.

Get the D44

My Jeep stops good with the D44 drum brakes and 35" tires.

Goatman said:

The D35/8.25 drum brakes are 10" x 1.75"

Click to expand...

only with the police package, otherwise they're 9"

and going from 9" to 10" drums (8.25 to 44) made a noticeable difference in my old truck.

D35 '90 and earlier had 10" drums. I had one in a parts XJ (limited)

Not sure about 8.25, I only ever had 9" drums on those.

Have you checked the spline count on your axle?Most 96's Ive run across have the 29spline axles.

Yes sir, counted the splines... 27 of them on both sides

So, are there any down sides to the D44? Is it hard to plumb the brakes? Are brake parts stupid expensive?

Thanks!
Geoff

Brake lines are pretty straight forward,the parts are too! Only a couple of parts are hard to come by,otherwise availabilty and prices aren't any different than the other XJ axles/brakes.

XJLI said:

and going from 9" to 10" drums (8.25 to 44) made a noticeable difference in my old truck.

Click to expand...

agreed, noticed a difference in my XJ as well

RCP Phx said:

Have you checked the spline count on your axle?Most 96's Ive run across have the 29spline axles.

Click to expand...

Just checked my 96 a couple weekends ago and it's 27. Don't remember the build date, though.

Disc brakes on an 8.25 are stupid easy, and I hate working on drums. Dunno about the 44, I'd honestly run a 29 spline 8.25 with discs before a 44, parts availability is great (try walking into a junkyard to get spare XJ 44 shafts recently?). The 44 ring gear is a quarter inch bigger (8.5 vs 8.25), the shafts are 1/10" bigger (1.31" vs 1.21") but the 8.25 has 1/4" larger axle tubes (3" vs 2.75") and probably a stronger housing. Is the 2-300 dollar premium, plus rebuilding a 20 year old axle, plus the scarce parts issue worth the slight gear/shaft strength benefit? I would run an 8.8 over a 44, there are a million of em in the junkyards, bigger ring gear, same size shafts as a 44, housing is massive, tubes are 3.25" (even bigger than C8.25 tubes), only problem is it takes some fab work instead of being bolt in. Oh... and they come with discs if you buy the right year, and are stupid easy to swap to discs otherwise.

Drum brakes on a 44 work fine with 33's, axle shafts are the same as a TJ 44 (the retainer plates are different)- spares or alloys aren't that hard to find, with the exception of the drums & shoes, wheel cylinders and hardware is the same as a non-C-clip dana 35.

My drum brakes on the 8.25 sucked. I completely rebuilt them and they still fell apart and barely worked. Auto adjusters never worked as far as I can tell.

Just put a disc brake conversion kit on and it was so simple. Just need to figure out what to do with the ebrake cables. Brakes feel great so far.

I'd get 29 spline carrier and shafts for the 8.25 and do the disc swap. Strength wise it's not a huge difference. I swapped to a 44 only because I found one already built for cheaper than locking and gearing my 8.25.

I'm poor so I would just get an extra set of drum brakes for the 8.25 and install the long ones in place of the short ones so that all of the shoes are long. This gives a noticable improvement in braking. The 8.25 is plenty strong for your stated purposes.