Saratoga said:
Thats why Im a newbie. I figured I would have to do both after getting some Ideas.
It's a slight possibility that you may already have a D44 in the rear. It'll look like this if you do.
When you say 'bigger tires', what do you have in mind? As long as you don't have a Dana 35 in the rear, you can probably run 33's or so with no problems. A D44 or a 29-spline 8.25 (found in 96+ XJs) will do 35s without much to worry about.
As far as the front axle goes...the D30 is actually a pretty stout lil guy. I wheel mine fairly hard with 33's, locked front and rear, and I've never broken a front axleshaft or u-joint on the trail, even with some pretty crappy u-joints. A friend of mine runs 35's on the same setup and he's never broken anything either. What you CAN expect, is to have to pull a bit more maintenance on it that you used to: balljoints, hubs, and tie-rod ends will probably have to be replaced at more frequent intervals than with smaller tires. Proper alignment will help to prolong these parts, but I'd expect to replace all of them yearly, with decent wheeling involved.
If you still desire something a little more stout up front...look into finding a Jeep Wagoneer D44. It's approximately the same width as what you've got already...but that's where the easiness ends. You'll be stuck with a 6-lug bolt pattern unless you pull some voodoo involving swapping over Ford outers, hubs, knuckles etc, and you'll also have to weld on all the control arm brackets so that it'll bolt into your front end. Some of this will involve welding on the cast iron center section of the diff, which is a fairly detailed task requiring some decent welding experience and some special high-nickel content welding rod.