Who runs Ford front D44 with Radius arms in an XJ?

Title says it.... Goatman? Farmermatt?

lets see... I can think of 2 people off hand. 3 different Jeeps. Crazy4Mopar runs a nearly stock radius arm setup and FarmerMatt run modified radius arms. You are a member, go to the Tech section and you will see a write up on this. Do lots of searching. THERE IS A TON OF INFO.

Matt

CW does

Like Scrappy said, check the tech articles here. Matt used an early bronco reg dana 44 and Lee (Crazy4Mopar) used a hp44 full width from a 78-79' Bronco axle. If U can get the hp44 5 lug from a 70's f-150 or bronco, then U get nice disc brakes, 297 u-jointed axle, rev ring, higher d.s. etc. With enough offset in your rims, the width shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Search'd out the wazooo. Info is too garbled with bs. I check the tech articles and the link was not there. Farmermatt sent it to me. What I got was a 79 f150 Ranger set. Front and rear. Cast radius arm mounts. The front has new brake lines even. Apparently this truck was new to the yard and still being driven. I got dibs on the 205 if I want it but I have one already. Ok ty. It looks like it will need the spring perches moved and a crossmember/radious arm mount point built. Other than that at a glance it does not Look to intimidating.

PM dirtclod on here also. He's running a set of full-with axles from a '78-79 Bronco with Ford radius arms.

Ghost said:

Search'd out the wazooo. Info is too garbled with bs. I check the tech articles and the link was not there. Farmermatt sent it to me. What I got was a 79 f150 Ranger set. Front and rear. Cast radius arm mounts. The front has new brake lines even. Apparently this truck was new to the yard and still being driven. I got dibs on the 205 if I want it but I have one already. Ok ty. It looks like it will need the spring perches moved and a crossmember/radious arm mount point built. Other than that at a glance it does not Look to intimidating.

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Both Abner and I run the cast mount axles. They work fine if you choose to use the ford arms (which we both do). If you aren't planning on running the ford arms, keep looking for a welded mount housing. Anyway, under a cherokee, you can just about bolt it in aside from the frame end of the radius arms. This is what Abner did. Reverse the coil buckets and they are only slightly wider than the XJ. The yoke is 1310, so your driveshaft mounts up. The pinion is slightly longer, so push the axle forward a bit when you mount it to avoid driveshaft mods. Your coils will be slightly bowed, but it is more of a looks thing, they will perform just fine. You will probably need to modify the shock mounts a bit, but for ease if your shocks are long enough, pull them over and bolt them in. Using a full width axle your radius arm mounts are close to the framerails on the XJ. I fabbed mounts and pulled the arms out slightly to locate them on the framerail plating I installed. Abner attached them partly on the framerail, partly on the crossmember. Your choice there. You will need to either make a real stout crossmember to attach to or plate the "frame" and mount it there. Farmermatt did the crossmember thing but he used EB axles which are narrower.

The rear is a boltup deal too. The leaf perches are only like a 1/2" off from cherokee width, not enough to make a big deal. You will need to fab up shock mounts. The yoke is 1330, so you need a cross-joint for your u-joint. The pinion length on the 9" ends up similar to the 8.25 and a little longer than the 35C, so depending on what you start with, you might be ok on driveshaft.

I chose to do a fair amount of customizing on my axles. (I knew once they were in, I most likely would never take them back out. lazy I guess). I made custom mounts for the coils in front to level the buckets and locate them directly vertical, removing the bow. I did high-steer using chevy knuckles, so I had to make a mount tower for my trackbar to eliminate bumpsteer. I also plated the arms for strength, they will bend on direct hits. I am running a 7 degree bushing to get my caster about right.

The rear I shaved, trussed and disked (again, do it now, cause I won't likely get to it again...) I took off all teh stock mounts to aid the modifications and to set the pinion angle right. I used MORE perches and made my shock mounts. I used chevy style weld on caliper mounts so I had the same brakes front and rear.

You can see pictures here: Pics Here

In about the middle of the pics are a few looking at tire stickout. The dark blue XJ on full widths is Abner's.

Good luck!

I was just about to copy in the long response Dirtclod pm'd me to my questions about the hp44/9" conversion. Thanks for the response, it was very good and helped alot. I'm going with the RE TJ 4 link and keeping both axles full width. This is getting to be a very popular swap into XJs as they are good axles with lots of aftermarket support and can be had for not too much, they get expensive when U put in the goodies like low gears, lockers, histeer, 35 spline nodular case into the 9" etc.

Big Red said:

I'm going with the RE TJ 4 link and keeping both axles full width.

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Talk to BillR on the mounts. That is how he did his.

Big Red said:

This is getting to be a very popular swap into XJs ...

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Maybe since Old_Man (Tom Houston) lives in my neighborhood, he and Abner and I should get together and put a in-depth tech article together on this. Hmmmm. Tom, you interested?

Big Red said:

... they are good axles with lots of aftermarket support and can be had for not too much, they get expensive when U put in the goodies like low gears, lockers, histeer, 35 spline nodular case into the 9" etc.

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True, but once you add lockers gears and such to any axle, they all get expensive. The real benefit of the 9", aside from inherent strength of design, ease of repair due to the third member, is that they are heavily used in the racing arena, so used parts are dirt cheap. As an example, I picked up my detroit off an ebay contact for only $200.

Basically the axles are really common, close enough to our trucks that they almost jump underneath, can be installed for very little and are simple and cheaper to upgrade. The main reasons I chose them are the ease of installation and the plethora of used spare parts in junkyards everywhere.

dirtclod said:

Talk to BillR on the mounts. That is how he did his.


Maybe since Old_Man (Tom Houston) lives in my neighborhood, he and Abner and I should get together and put a in-depth tech article together on this. Hmmmm. Tom, you interested?


True, but once you add lockers gears and such to any axle, they all get expensive. The real benefit of the 9", aside from inherent strength of design, ease of repair due to the third member, is that they are heavily used in the racing arena, so used parts are dirt cheap. As an example, I picked up my detroit off an ebay contact for only $200.

Basically the axles are really common, close enough to our trucks that they almost jump underneath, can be installed for very little and are simple and cheaper to upgrade. The main reasons I chose them are the ease of installation and the plethora of used spare parts in junkyards everywhere.

Click to expand...

Thanks Dirtclod, BillR has been a great resource for info and did a great job with his hp44. I have decided to leave mine full width so there is some differences here. I agree that all axles are expensive when U add the goodies and that dana 44 and ford 9" stuff is cheap in relation to other axles and worth the investment. I like how they are not heavy axles like dana 60's or 14 bolts etc, but can be built pretty beefy with the right parts. Especially the ford 9" with 31, 33, 35, or 40 spline shafts, nodular cases, removeable 3rd members etc etc. The 9" is used so extensively by race car circuit that parts are cheap to get on ebay like U said.

A tech article would be awesome on here if U guys can get it written down with pics and differences between you and the other guys. Good tech indeed.

Dirtclod: Are the 35's giving U enough clearance under your axles? I have 35" and 37" mtrs that I can use. I really want to go with my 37" mtrs on 8" beadlock rims, but then the 35's would look pretty small on my CJ7 buggy I stole the 37's off of. Decisions, decisions. :laugh3:
Troy

You know I'm doing the same thing. Just been either too busy or too broke to finish it. I think I've got the $$$ thing under control so now I'm starting on the conversion. I'm doing the tear down of the axle and installing the gears in about a week.

I will definately document it and can use any help that is offered.

YO TOM!!
Man I need to stop over sometime. You know I will happily provide any help, info, time.....cheap wheels and tires :laugh3: ..... you need for a tech writeup. I still have some spare parts for detailed pics.

Big Red, I chose to run 35s on my rig as it gave me a good height that I can get in and out of easily. This is my DD (I have another dedicated wheeler EB), so I didn't want to be clambering in and out everyday for work and whatnot. Abner is running 37s and has only slightly more lift than I do. I am running 4.88 and he is at 5.13, so the gearing advantage is approximately the same. I havent had any diff clearance problems and can run anything that Abner can (provided it isn't on a cliff, man I hate heights). Under general wheeling conditions, I don't think the change from 35s to 37s is all that much.

I have had several people ask me why I chose to do a 44/9" swap if I never planned to go over 35" on tire. There are a couple reasons. First, I hate to be "that" guy, you know the one always broke down on the trail holding everyone up. So I chose axles that would easily accomodate the 35's. Next, I could have built up the stocker to handle the 35s, but the parts would be very expensive to purchase and replace. Yes, even alloys can break and not many junkyards have them laying around for me to grab. So I wanted a commonly found axle that I could get spare parts. There are a TON of fullsize ford trucks from the late 70s in the yards, so plenty of cheap parts to grab from. By using the 44/9" combo, the stock components should hold up fine, but I could build them up much further if I need to.

Narrowing them was not an option. One of the reasons I was swapping axles was for the stability of full width. Also, if I narrowed them, I start to loose the ability to pull parts from junkyards, unless I chose to narrow to waggy width and run waggy shafts. Narrowing the axle adds to the cost, which I would rather put into other things. Lastly, the cast axles cannot be narrowed well. If I was going to build a stock width axle from a Ford 44, I would have looked longer for a welded mount housing. But, I got too good a deal on the axles, so I ran them. As I said above the 9" is heavily used in the racing circles, so there is a plethora of high performance parts and components available for cheap. AND they are super simple to work on and learn to regear.

Simple, cheap, replaceable, easy to install, very common. Reasons the Ford 44 and 9". (Geez I sound like a politician or used car salesman :laugh3: )

You sound like one of those damned engineers :laugh3:

Will an MJ suffice?

I used the lower part of the radius arm mounts from a Ford van on a custom crossmember (1/4"x7" with the sides bent up by a shop):


This is a side shot showing the coil bow:


I fashioned wedges to fix it (there's a smaller wedge of the same angle inside so the bolts tighten down flat):


This is the result:


Even after turning the coil buckets around, I still had a conflict with the bumpstops when the spring compressed:


I removed the bumpstop ends for the time being, but soon I'll be angling the bumpstop towers outward slightly.

I adapted the Ford's single brake line location with the Jeep's duel line system and some long-ish brake lines I found at the auto parts store. I liked the location because it meant I didn't need the really really long lines that lifted Jeeps use.


Don't forget that you'll need a track bar too. I made mine out of a modified Ford piece with an aftermarket frame bracket.
I strived for the simplest design I could (considering that I don't have a decent welder).
There are more pics and info at: http://www.picturetrail.com/petermontie
Jeep on!
--Pete

Oh, and I went with the 44/9 because I started with a 2wd truck and it turned out to be a better deal to buy the whole Bronco (a rare one with the optional 4.10 gears) and part it out to pay for the project. Besides, I LOVE the width and the fact that I don't really need to worry all that much about breakin' parts.
Oh, and I needed adapter Ujoints both front and rear to mate the Jeep driveshafts to the Ford axles. I took the Jeep and Ford joints to Napa and we found the one that worked.
Jeep on!
--Pete

I think Dirtclod just called me out, something to the affect the he could run anythink I could as long as it was not on the side of a cliff. :rattle: :gee: alas, I have to watch what I say as he has the power to withhold my paycheck.

As an addition bit of tech for tonight I used a standard RE track bar and just left the sleeve out of the axle end bushing. The hiem shows alot of thread, but I am at about 8" of lift so thats life.

For those of you worried about johnny law, I run an extended tj flare and it covers the tire quite well (37" mtr's on 8" wheels w/ 4" b.s.)

Looks good Adner by the pics I see from Dirtclod's link, I though those looked like 37's. I'm going to be running the same tire with 8" beadlock rims on my XJ and keeping it full width. It's nice having some pics to see what it will look like before I see it for myself on my jeep. Are the axles holding up to the 37's o.k.? What specs do the axles have as far as gears, lockers, alloys or stock shafts/u-joints?

My bro-in-law runs axles out of a 78 Bronc. Cast wedges and stock radius arms mounted to custom crossmember. Works well as is. He runs 38's and has been more than pleased with the results. His rear outflexes the front though, so he's going to wrist one arm, change to high-misalignment bushings in the rear (RE, Johnny Joint, etc.) and re-do coil mounts to get rid of the angle/bind.

I would say this is probably one of the best "bang-for-the buck" suspensions you can slap on a XJ/MJ. Ford did most of the work for you.

Jay

Big
I'm running stock shafts w/ tacked caps. I haven't run real hard since i put in the aussie up front. I have been advised to take spares for the 44. In the rear i now have an arb. It is the stuff! i ran a mini spool for a while and sheared the pin one day on the street. I run 5:13's in the diffs.
Another bit of info, my rear ds is a stcok big bronco shaft with the cv head changed to a 1310 to match my sye.