Dana 44 full width

So after about 2 months and a 4 hr drive, I finally found a 75 HP ford front dana 44 to cut down and narrow to waggy width. Unfortunately, when I cut off the radius arm mounts I discovered that the tubes were badly rusted & pitted out right in the middle of where I need to relocate the drivers side inner C to. I'm afraid if I shorten it, it would be a steering nightmare. So, I figure my best option is to leave it full width. Currently I have wheels with 3.75" backspacing and 1" spacers and I like the width, so I figure if I just get new wheels with stock BS and 5 on 5.5 lug pattern, I'll be pretty close to where I am now. My real concern is the pinion input/driveshaft. How far off center will the pinion be if I leave the axle full width with the axle centered under the Jeep, and will that cause problems? Any input/suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Maybe it doesn't look as bad as it really is, but I'm not sure I'd worry about the pitting. I'd clean it up with a grinder, maybe a media blaster, press it on and weld it. It should be a 1/2 inch tube, yeah? What is your concern?

Gaius said:

Maybe it doesn't look as bad as it really is, but I'm not sure I'd worry about the pitting. I'd clean it up with a grinder, maybe a media blaster, press it on and weld it. It should be a 1/2 inch tube, yeah? What is your concern?

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Normally, a tube pitted like that I wouldnt care either (my 14b it like that) but since he's gunna have to reinstall the C's its gunna cause problems. Its gunna require a couple inches chopped off the end of the tube and that'll put the inner c right in the area of pitting. You could run into problems with the not being enough meat on the tube for the c to properly fit onto the tube. I had a tiny bit of pitting/surface rust on the long side tube of my HP60 I narrowed. All I did was wire wheel it clean and go over the mating area with some sand paper. The maybe few thousands thinner the tube was now made it easier to pound the inner c on, but was still enough of an interference fit that the c stayed true.

Yeah, I wouldn't worry about it, but The pitting is like that under the entire area that the radius arm mounts covered the tube, with it going down about 1/16 in some spots, so I'm afraid the interference fit is pretty much gone.

what about narrowing it down to XJ width and selling it to me?

My jeep's running 78" wide across the outside of the tires, which are 36x13.50. For comparision, my stock axle with standard 15x8 rims (3.25" BS I think?) and 33x12.50, was 73.5". So setting it up like this only added about 4" of width.

I'm using a 16x10 rim, with 5.5" backspacing. Comes within 1/16" of the spherical ends on my steering, so if you're going to use that much backspacing check all the distances real well before you buy anything. I'm running disk brakes too ('77 axle), so the spacing could be a little different.

Stock backspacing is usually 5" only on 7" wide rim. Most 8" rim are around 3.25", and 10" rims around 2". If you're running a 7" rim then you have some small tires, and wouldn't that make this axle a little bit of overkill?

Never actually measured the pinion location on mine, but I could take a couple pictures after work today if you wanted. Only issue I've ever had with it is the driveshaft sometimes hits the exhaust, I can't hear or feel it, but I can see where the paint's scraped off the shaft.

One possibility is have a machine shop lathe it down, and then sleeve the part that was lathed to return it to correct diameter. You'd need a lot of seam and plug welds but it would get you back to the interference fit.