Dana 35 and Dana 44 brake parts

Are they interchangeable? Someone told me the drums and brake parts are the same and can be swapped. Is this true?

XJBill said:

Are they interchangeable? Someone told me the drums and brake parts are the same and can be swapped. Is this true?

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NEGATIVE. The guy who told you this is HIGH...I swapped from a 35 to a 44 and there is nothing the same that I could see. Even the hardware for most of the brakes.

Although I've been told there are exceptions (which seems to be standard for Jeeps), in general the Dana 35 (early non c-clip version) used 10" x 1.75" drums and the D44 used 10" x 2.5" drums. The offset on the backing plates is slightly different, so if you try to just use the wider drums on a D35 axle that came with the narrow drums, the back of the drum hits the backing plate before the center section is seated on the drive flange of the axle.

Only way to use the D44 brakes on a D35 is to swap over EVERYTHING from the backing plates out.