front f250 or f 150 Dana 44 year

someone mentioned in a post I had about a D44 from a 76 ford
when I looked on www.car-part.com they state that the f150 started in 1983
and F100 were before that
should I be looking for a F250 D44??

F250 HP44's were leaf sprung and are 8 lug

F150 HP44's have a radius arm setup w/ coils. The later models have cast on mounts which are less desirable. I think it was in 78-79? 5x5.5 lug patern.

They did make F150's prior to 1983. Do a search on car-part.com and even if you search under f150, the earlier years will show up.

use f-150 and search for 1976

disregard the fact that it says 1983 on there...

the f-100 4x's also have the D44 with all the same parts as the f-150, but a ford 9" from the rear MIGHT have 28 spline shafts instead of 31...

I once pulled a HPD44 (with welded wedges) from a '77 F100 that had a 31 spline 9" rear.

I've seen F150s of roughly the same vintage, I don't know the difference is between the 100 and 150....

I believe that F250 (3/4 ton) HP 44 fronts have much thicker axle tube compared to F150 (1/2 ton).

ya they do. Not sure how much thicker though

ipkyss said:

ya they do. Not sure how much thicker though

Click to expand...

Only the late model F-150 tubes are thinner. The earlier F-150's use 2.75" x .5" tubes. The F-250's use 3" x .5". The late F-150's use .375" tubes.

96XJCLASSIC said:

I believe that F250 (3/4 ton) HP 44 fronts have much thicker axle tube compared to F150 (1/2 ton).

Click to expand...

i call BS

i dont think that there could be thicker axle tubes than the 76 f-150 front end that is sitting in my garage

2.75" OD with a 1.75" ID

1/2" wall tube...


the ford 9's from the f-100's had 31 spline and 28 spline shafts in sort of a grab bag configuration - whatever ford had at the time
the f-150's all were 31 spline
(as far as my research tells me anyway)

The f-100 was a lighter duty vehicle, but shared the same front end.
I also seem to remember something about some of the f-100's having full time hubs rather than manual hubs...

here is the best source on the interweb for a front d44 in my opinion...

http://77cj.littlekeylime.com/web_rs44.html