'88 sportrucker
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Douglas City, CA
I have an '88 comanche 4X2 sportruck that's all stock with a 2.5 L fourbanger and a 4 speed manual tranny. I just bought her a few weeks ago even though the registration was 2 1/2 years overdue, she hadn't been driven at least that long, the steering had 6" of play, the brakes were marginal, the rear end was noisy, the tires were shot and she hadn't been smog tested for years. Kinda scary, huh? Well I'm practically fearless, I bought her anyway and now I've got everything squared away including smog certification, and license registration. One problem remains, the noisy rear end. I had the axles pulled and the bearings and seals replaced. No Joy, the differential still sounds very unhappy with some sort of scraping, grinding noise that's most noticeable around 20-25 mph. What to do? I found a dana 44 rear axle in a junkyard mounted on a 1988 comanche long bed with 225,000+ miles on the odometer. The junkyard guy says it's a direct bolt-on. (my comanche has a short bed) Question #1--- is it or ain't it a bolt-on? Will the different drive shafts, yokes, whatever, present any probs? Question #2--- What about gear ratios? the junkyard guy says it's 3.07 on the d44. I don't know what mine is, the ratio tag is missing, the axle has a build date of 4-16-8 2A and a Bill of material # of 605324 5XA stamped on the axle. Can anyone decypher that for me? Could a large change in ratios affect what my small 2.5 liters can handle to an unacceptable degree? The Junkyard guy wants $700 for that d44 and my pockets aren't very deep. I hear the D44 is a lot more robust than a D35 (which mine is dying at 187K) so I'm wondering how much more robust. Should I rebuild the D35 or go for a swap? Any info or advice would be much appreciated.