Lets hear your D30 Stories/ Good & Bad

I'm looking for a little inspiration to make me keep my D30. As it sits it’s not locked because I was a little apprehensive about 4.88s with a locker and breaking something. I now realize that I NEED a locker up front and I'm not sure what to do here. Throw more money at it or start another axle project. I plan to keep it stock width and street legal.

As of right now it needs:
Alloy shafts/U-joints
LCA mounts (mine are shot)
Truss welded to the dif (It's trussed but not to the dif)
Locker


I just want to hear a little real world experience on what your D30 has been through. If you broke, what was it and how was it set up.

I know this topic has been covered a million times but I’m board at work.
Please keep the pissing matches to a minimum.

Cal, what gears are you running and what carrier?

Thanks!

IIRC Cal runs Dana/Spicer gears and an ?ARB??

Ok, here's a story.

Once upon a time there was a high pinion Dana 30. It had a disco housing with Alloy USA shafts and Spicer 760s. It had an Aussie locker and 4.88 gears. The Dana 30 went on all sorts of adventures. It went to Johnson Valley one time and had fun. One time it went to Stoddard Valley and ate pumpkins. It took a long trip to Moab, and was happy because it got to ride on a trailer. That was a special treat. One summer, the Dana 30 drove to Swamp lake and went camping, to try something different. The rest of the time, the Dana 30 went to Rubicon many times and even went swimming in Fordyce Creek a couple times! The Dana 30 had a lot of fun and lived happily ever after. The end.

Yukon 4.88s, Yukon carrier, lockrite, stock shafts (full circles/760s).

Ran 33s for 5 months, then 35s for a few weeks before this happened.



This is just my experience. I also have a fairly heavy right foot

Phil said:

Ok, here's a story.

Once upon a time there was a high pinion Dana 30. It had a disco housing with Alloy USA shafts and Spicer 760s. It had an Aussie locker and 4.88 gears. The Dana 30 went on all sorts of adventures. It went to Johnson Valley one time and had fun. One time it went to Stoddard Valley and ate pumpkins. It took a long trip to Moab, and was happy because it got to ride on a trailer. That was a special treat. One summer, the Dana 30 drove to Swamp lake and went camping, to try something different. The rest of the time, the Dana 30 went to Rubicon many times and even went swimming in Fordyce Creek a couple times! The Dana 30 had a lot of fun and lived happily ever after. The end.

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Lol...


My story...D30 HP with 4.10s, Spicer 760s, Lock Right, Solid Diff Cover, turning 32s. It's happy and has not suffered any broken bones or busted teeth. We're happy together.

MoparManiac said:

Yukon 4.88s, Yukon carrier, lockrite, stock shafts (full circles/760s).

Ran 33s for 5 months, then 35s for a few weeks before this happened.

This is just my experience. I also have a fairly heavy right foot

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Yuck. Did that happen in forward or reverse?

for the $ you'd be dumping into a 30 and still having a 30, why not start a 44 build? (says the guy who's just about to do a wj swap :doh but more to the point, the reason i stuck with my 30 is because i bought it for 300 with 4.56 gears installed on a tru track (full case mechanical LSD basically...). my housing is in good shape and not falling apart. so where you have to do fab work already, why not put the fab work into something that will take more of a beating. a friend of mine, colin (moparmaniac on here), stripped 5 teeth off of his D30 4.88 ring gear not too long ago on 35s with a lock rite. the determined cause was deflection of the housing and carrier. stock carriers tend to bend a little and housings can bend. my tru track, being a full case replacement, is a bit stronger and that's why i'm sticking with it even though i'm going to 35s by the end of the summer. if you want to lock the d30 as is, it might happen to you. i've heard of this happening multiple times but this is the only first hand experience that i have.

edit: that's what i get for typing a long post, colin beat me to it.

BruceB83 said:

Yuck. Did that happen in forward or reverse?

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not sure.. there wasn't a whole lot of reversing going on that day though.

asp387 said:

for the $ you'd be dumping into a 30 and still having a 30, why not start a 44 build? (says the guy who's just about to do a wj swap :doh but more to the point, the reason i stuck with my 30 is because i bought it for 300 with 4.56 gears installed on a tru track (full case mechanical LSD basically...). my housing is in good shape and not falling apart. so where you have to do fab work already, why not put the fab work into something that will take more of a beating. a friend of mine, colin (moparmaniac on here), stripped 5 teeth off of his D30 4.88 ring gear not too long ago on 35s with a lock rite. the determined cause was deflection of the housing and carrier. stock carriers tend to bend a little and housings can bend. my tru track, being a full case replacement, is a bit stronger and that's why i'm sticking with it even though i'm going to 35s by the end of the summer. if you want to lock the d30 as is, it might happen to you. i've heard of this happening multiple times but this is the only first hand experience that i have.

edit: that's what i get for typing a long post, colin beat me to it.

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Did moparmaniac have a stock diff cover when it happened? I know adding something like the Solid cover (what I have) or the like increases housing rigidity.

Phil said:

Ok, here's a story.

Once upon a time there was a high pinion Dana 30. It had a disco housing with Alloy USA shafts and Spicer 760s. It had an Aussie locker and 4.88 gears. The Dana 30 went on all sorts of adventures. It went to Johnson Valley one time and had fun. One time it went to Stoddard Valley and ate pumpkins. It took a long trip to Moab, and was happy because it got to ride on a trailer. That was a special treat. One summer, the Dana 30 drove to Swamp lake and went camping, to try something different. The rest of the time, the Dana 30 went to Rubicon many times and even went swimming in Fordyce Creek a couple times! The Dana 30 had a lot of fun and lived happily ever after. The end.

Click to expand...

LOL, I like this story. He had quite a life :laugh:

BruceB83 said:

Did moparmaniac have a stock diff cover when it happened? I know adding something like the Solid cover (what I have) or the like increases housing rigidity.

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No, Colin had a RuffStuff diff cover on when that happened.



My D30 story: I blew up the spider gears one day on 32" BFG all-terains, stock gearing.

Over the years I wheeled the CJ with a 3/4 ton D44 front, I never broke. However, I saw literally thousands of D30s break. Ok, that's not true. But, I did see many, many, many D30s break and at the worst times!! Plus, when the axle/ u-joint breaks, it can easily spit the ball joints out allowing the wheel to take a trip the shoulder of the road without the Jeep allong for the ride.

On one trip through Sledgehammer, we had three TJs, one XJ, my CJ, and Crazy Jim's YJ. We started at 8:00 a.m., got back to camp at 4:00 a.m. the next morning - all due to broken D30s. None of the TJs broker their D30s. Crazy Jim broke his three times!!! I've seen him break more D30s than all the others combined. But, he was an ex-sand rail guy with a heavy foot that was half numb from diabetes. One of the TJ guys had a '97 with 4.88s, ARB and 35s. He was on his original u-joints in 2006 and never broke. He was the god of finess, though. His Jeep seemed to hang suspended in the air, held up by the angels as it floated over the rocks.

Moral of the story:
Go easy on your right foot.

Needless to say, I am a little paranoid about getting into an XJ over the CJ. But, I know I'm not rock crawling this one, yet.

the only busted D30 stories i know involve a 5.2 zj and a drunk blonde i think that happend twice and it was stock

Moral of the story for me:

If you're going to dump a lot of money into your D30, you're better off putting it into a D44.

Both axles take a bit of coin to make worthy, most folks stick with the D30 because they already have it and with proper upgrades the only real strength gain a D44 offers is the ring and pinion. Depending on availability, you can spend a lot of money finding a HP D44, then you have possibly narrowing the housing, re-gearing, locking, new u-joints/bearings/seals, etc. Beyond that you have to either truss it with link mounts or just add link mounts, setting the axle geometry for your suspension.

It's simpler for many people to dump some coin into the D30 and just wheel it, particularly if their plans include no bigger than 35" tires and a light foot. The D30 in my XJ hasn't let me down yet. The one in my CJ crapped out years ago and got an 8-lug D44 in it's place to match the 8-lug D-60 with 4.88"s and full Detroit that I stole from a guy for $150 off the Little Nickel classifieds. Best buy I've ever scored.

fubar XJ said:

Both axles take a bit of coin to make worthy, most folks stick with the D30 because they already have it and with proper upgrades the only real strength gain a D44 offers is the ring and pinion. Depending on availability, you can spend a lot of money finding a HP D44, then you have possibly narrowing, re-gearing, locking, new u-joints/bearings/seals, etc. Beyond that you have to either truss it with link mounts or just add link mounts, setting the axle geometry for your suspension.

It's simpler for many people to dump some coin into the D30 and just wheel it, particularly if their plans include no bigger than 35" tires and a light foot. The D30 in my XJ hasn't let me down yet. The one in my CJ crapped out years ago and got an 8-lug D44 in it's place to match the 8-lug D-60 with 4.88"s and full Detroit that I stole from a guy for $150 off the Little Nickel classifieds. Best buy I've ever scored.

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I totally understand the D30 statement, as that's exactly what I did. So this post isn't bashing them, just saying HP44s ARE out there for a deal.

However, HPD44s are not THAT expensive. My buddy Travis (5spd_XJ) picked his up for around $150, and I got mine setup like this for $1000:

78 F250 HP44 narrowed to waggy width
Clayton brackets welded on setup for XJ, and OTK inverted T
All new spindles, bearings, seals, calipers, pads, rotors, not sure on BJs.
Warn Premiums
Factory 4.10s with lockrite

Deals are out there, you just have to find them.

How about a 71-72 Ford F250 D44 for a donor axle? Any problems with this year?

I know a guy that has two complete that he wants to get rid of for ~$200 each.

Would it be possible to convert it to a 5/5.5 lug?

Deadman 94 xj said:

How about a 71-72 Ford F250 D44 for a donor axle? Any problems with this year?

I know a guy that has two complete that he wants to get rid of for ~$200 each.

Would it be possible to convert it to a 5/5.5 lug?

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I believe those were both closed knuckle and low pinion... good info here:

http://77cj.littlekeylime.com/Dana44_2.htm



and btw, I got my '77 f150 hp44 for $100 complete. Like Colin said, good deals exist, you just gotta look. Now if only it had stopped at the $100 mark...

Its not that uncommon to have my name come up in d30 threads, but its pretty rare that it is in the first post.

I ran Precision 4.88's with a 30 spline ARB.

IMHO, the key to a strong d30 is in the housing; stock it flexes like Phil's chassis.

I had a trus of 2x4 .250" welded to the the top of the axle, including the diff, and ran a crane chromoly diff cover.

5spdXJ,

Thanks! I just looked that up. That's not going to work lol.