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The all inclusive guide to ford 8.8 swap

Havoc_protocol

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Dallas
Ive seen alot of great posts with some info or even alot of info on the ford 8.8 swap. However (and i might be wrong) i havent seen any all inclusive end all be all guides on what you definitely need and as someone who just finished doing this swap, i can with 100% certainty tell you what to do. How to do it. And what youl need.

So its actually pretty simple. Our dana 35s are junk and whoever was incharge of R&D at dana spicer during this time should be killed old yeller style immediately.
8.25 is better and very few of us have or were able to source a dana 44 and when we find them they are STUPID MONEY. so what do we do? We turn to our old friends at ford.

The 8.8 was in service for so long its not even funny. It came in mustangs rangers f150s explorers and pretty much anything ford produced from 1642-around 2005 i think. We as XJ owners are after the explorer one. Its about 1.5 inches shorter than the dana 35 my XJ came with and if you get the right year it also comes with a badass disc brake conversion.

So first things first, remove old pos that grenaded on hwy 183 in fort worth on our way to a birthday party in 5 o clock traffic and instead of getting plastered and binging on tacos we go home and get plastered and cry and turn into a very small ball of self loathing and mourning for the mortal soul of the d35. It will not be missed. Youl need to remove the rear sway bar if for some reason you in fact still posess it. Then the 2 E brake cables that go to the bracket halfway to the front of the xj. Leave the one going to the front be. Its made a home
There and mom and dad have yet to get a divorce so custody remains to the xj. Be cool. Its cool. Be more like the XJ E brake cable. it got invited to all the high school parties and also wears shades at inappropriate times.

Onto the brakes, i dont care what anyone told you the rear brake line that comes from the bodies hardline to the T on the dana will not work unless you source 2 ford explorer passenger side rear brake likes and also a male to male 7/16 #20 brake line adapter. The new ford 8.8 lines will work STOCK. More on that later.

I have yet to get the ABS light to turn off and have yet to try to connect the wires together. Ill have to tell you more on that at another time after i have tried that. What i did was just cut the ever loving piss out of them with a set of dykes. it works.

With all that out of the way here are the components you will need.

Ruff stuff sells a sweet swap kit. Buy it. Its 140$ and comes with some seriously beefy new u bolts, washers, nuts bigger than mine, weld on leaf spring perches, new U bolt plates and new shock mounts. Youl need grade 8 bolts lock and flat washers and nuts. I prefer the nylock variety and have had no problems. The kit doesent come with those. Theyre 12$ at ace hardware.

East coast gear supply sells the dana spicer adapter flange to reuse the stock xj driveshaft and 1310 U joint. Mine dident need replacing so the stock one is still there. Works dope. Part # YOKE-F8.8-1310-FLANGE its 34$ unless you get new bolts that can come
With it for an additional 7$

My brake setup uses the full stock brake lines from the ford 8.8. So im using the
calipers BOTH brake lines and the hardline on the axle. The driver side brake line goes from the caliper to the axle hardline over to the passenger side soft line to the caliper. And where it attaches to the hardline it also goes up to the body hardline. It will need ZERO and i mean zero modification. It is pretty short so i removed my hardline from the bodys mount and pointed it down. Its given me a few inches to play with and will work for temporary street use. I would NOT go wheelin with this brake line and am currently shopping for a extended brakeline.

The first step in using the ruff stuff kit is putting the already stripped axle on a transmission jack under the xj with the with the new leafspring perches on there. Youre going to want to center the axle between the 2 sides between a 8th of an inch. Mine is and my buddy is a toyota certified master mechanic with a 1uz tacoma so im gona just go out on a limb and trust his opinion on that. I believe my space from the back of the disc brake to the outside of the leafspring perch is something like 3 and 5/8 inch on both sides if someone here needs the exact measurement let me know and ill to get it for you. Just center it. On the new leaf spring perches there are 3 holes you can use to put the leaf spring centering pin in to hold it center. I used the middle one. Works good.

Step 2. Setting pinion angle. I know for a fact someone is going to challenge me on this because when i was researching it its like assholes. Everyone has one. Noone thinks theres came without an engineering degree. Fun fact my asshole went to yale. 🌈 now this will change from xj to xj depending on your lift. Mine has a 4.5 inch lift. Same toyota mechanic said measure the angle of the transfer case and. Match it. Then go up one to two degrees. My personal xj has a np242 with a 5 degree down angle so my pinion angle i chose is 6 degrees up. I have had zero driveshaft wobble.

Step 3. Now that everything is centered left to right and the pinion angle is set tack weld the perches into place and remove the axle. Weld the everloving christ out of those. Mine are welded inside and outside. Once welded and cooled throw her back on in there and install the new U bolts and U bolt plates. The ruff stuff units are probably twice as thick as stock. I SINCERELY suggest you buy a 1 inch ratchet wrench. There will be alot of U bolt thread left sticking up. You could probably run a block lift with this though i dont reccomend block lifts as a general rule.

step 4. After the axle is sitting in there attach the pinion Adapter from east coast gear supply. The thing goes in suuuper easy. Press the U joint in place the adapter comes with new retaining springs to hold the caps on. Drive shaft done.

Step 5. Attach the ford 8.8 brake line to the body hardline. Bleed the brakes. Brakes done.

Step 6. The shock mounts. On the stock d35 the lowest part is the shock mounts. I do not know why they would do that. Stop it. I put the shock mounts on with my hardware Nd jacked them shocks into position. Mine are welded to the center of the axle and my shocks are at 74 degrees. This is how i made them even on both sides. The shocks will now be further compressed this way about 5 inches and no longer drag rocks constantly. Huzzah. Shocks done.

You are now ready to take this thing anywhere and do a pretty wicked burnout. This time it wont explode ❤️ If you need pics let me know. I got em.

PRICE. I got my rear end from pick and pull ft worth with brakelines and brakes and everything for 197. Then another 40 for the adapter and 140 for the swap kit. All in im at 381$
 
Nice write up. I missed what you did for your parking brake. I did this same axle swap this year on my 1991. I was lucky enough that my OE park brake cables worked just fine with the little adapter lever from The Flop Shop.


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Nice write up. I missed what you did for your parking brake. I did this same axle swap this year on my 1991. I was lucky enough that my OE park brake cables worked just fine with the little adapter lever from The Flop Shop.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If you dont mind the cables being pretty long you can use two factory explorer 8.8 passenger side ebrake cables. Ive done this twice and it works well minus the cables being super long.
 
Ill have to do that. My mechanic buddy has the jeep now so he can really burn in the welds with his 220 v welder. Ill have to use that 8.8 ebrake cable trick. Does anyone have a source for extended 8.8 brake line from the driverside to the hardline??? Ive looked everywhere and i cant find a new one. So maybe a junkyard source?
 
Ill have to do that. My mechanic buddy has the jeep now so he can really burn in the welds with his 220 v welder. Ill have to use that 8.8 ebrake cable trick. Does anyone have a source for extended 8.8 brake line from the driverside to the hardline??? Ive looked everywhere and i cant find a new one. So maybe a junkyard source?

I just ordered a Dorman H380528 Hydraulic Brake Hose off Amazon. It's basically the same as other side. I also made my own hard lines accross the top of the axle housing and used the Rough Country extended rear brake line (25 inches long) to the T-junction. Worked great with my 4" on lift.
 
Ill have to do that. My mechanic buddy has the jeep now so he can really burn in the welds with his 220 v welder. Ill have to use that 8.8 ebrake cable trick. Does anyone have a source for extended 8.8 brake line from the driverside to the hardline??? Ive looked everywhere and i cant find a new one. So maybe a junkyard source?

I used 2 passenger sides and fabbed up new hard lines.
 
To have a diff grenade anywhere on 183 at speed is a religious experience given the way people in Texas tailgate - the last time I was on 183 I had a guy in a jacked up truck about .1 inch off my rear bumper the whole time, weaving onto the shoulder occasionally just to let me know he was there - apparently 80 wasn't fast enough for him, never mind that I couldn't go faster due to the car that was in front of me.


Good and funny write up - I'm planning a 8.8 swap instead of sinking money in my 8 1/4 diff so the information will be very useful.
 
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