mvusse

Truss the Dana 30, Chromoly axles and CTM joints? That bill will be higher than my D60 swap. 33" and smaller the stock D30 will be fine. 35" is where you start breaking stuff, but the above mentioned upgrades should be good enough, although expensive. Larger than 35 a D60 and lots of fabrication is the way to go. I ran 35s on a stock locked D30 for three years. In those three years I went through more than 20 axle shafts and u joints, grenaded 4 differentials and went through 3 axle housings. Also an average of 6 unit bearings each year. For serious off road the lower control arm mounts need to be beefed up (some got ripped off, some folded up like an accordion) and on the non-disconnect housings the passenger upper control arm mount needs to be replaced with something stronger (ripped off the only non-disconnect housing I used on the second trip out). Again, with 33" tires or smaller, stock should be fine.

It is easier and usually cheaper than to swap the entire axle rather than regear the one you have. You want a front axle from out of a 4.0/automatic or possibly 2.5/4 speed manual (double check that because after a certain year all 2.5s got 4.10 gears regardless of transmission), Get one from a Comanche or 1999 or older Cherokee. 91 (90? 92?) and earlier Command-Trac had the central axle disconnect if you want to keep that, Selec-Trac and newer Cherokees did not if you want to do away with the CAD. ABS and anything after 1996(?) has stronger shafts with larger u joints. BTW, all driver side axle shafts swap back and forth: small u joint, large u joint, or V8 Grand Cherokee CV shafts. All non-disconnect passenger side shafts swap as well. A disconnect passenger side axle will not fit a non-disconnect housing. A non-disconnect passenger shaft will fit in a disconnect housing, but a (non standard) oil seal will need to be added in the axle tube just outside the diff, and the disconnect mechhanism needs to be gutted. Other Dana 30 front axles: YJ Wrangler -> disconnect housing, high pinion, but LEAF sprung. You do not want these, they will not bolt up. TJ Wrangler -> larger u joints, but low pinion. They will bolt up, but low pinion is weaker. 2000 and newer XJ Cherokee -> see TJ ZJ Grand Cherokee -> see TJ except V8 which should have CV shafts JK Wrangler -> wider, will probablky not bolt on, could be Dana 44, not sure, different wheel bolt pattern. You do not want these. WJ Grand Cherokee -> uses different steering knuckles and wheel bolt pattern. You do not want these.

Some insight and answers to questions that have cropped up in this thread: The turn signal signal does not go from hot to nothing to hot to nothing. It alternates between hot and ground. Same with the side marker lights. When they are off, they are not disconnected. When they are off, the wire leading to them is an active ground. So with the old wiring, one side of the side marker light is always grounded, and the other wire is either grounded or hot depending on whether or not your lights are on. With the new/modified wiring, the one side is either ground or hot depending on whether your lights are on, the other side is either grounded (no turn signal) or alternates between ground and hot (turn signal on). So with the lights off it will blink in sync with the turn signal at full brightness, with the lights on it will blink out of sync at full brightness. Nothing is backfeeding and nothing is running in series. Since a diode whether light emitting or not only allows current to pass one way there are two ways to make it work correctly with LEDs. One is to run the LED through a bridge rectifier, the other is to run two LEDs in parallel with opposite polarity.The bridge rectifier will dim the LED slightly because both signals run through a diode. A diode will have a voltage drop across it of either about 0.6V or 0.7V (silicon) or 0.3V (germanium) so assuming hot is 12V and silicon diodes, the LEDs will only see 12 - 2x0.7 = 10.6V. Hope I didn't confuse anyone too badly. (Can you tell I'm a cabinet maker by trade? :) )

And with 4wd the speedo cable is driven off the transfer case, not the transmission. Your speedometer gear/sender out of your 2wd transmission will fit in the transfer case, but you might need a longer cable to reach. BUT: First you were asking about a manual transmission from behind a 2.5 which would be either an AX4 4 speed or an AX5 5 speed. Both of these will bolt up to your 2.8 V6. But then you mentioned a 1990 AW4. The AW4 is the automatic transmission used behind the 4.0 6 cylinder. This will not bolt up to your 2.8V6, and even if it did you would have to add the transmission control unit and somehow hack that into your 1986 wiring harness along with various sensors on the engine (which was never available with the AW4). The transfer cases most commonly available are a 231 (command-trac) or 242 (selec-trac). Both are available with a number of different spline count AND DIFFERENT LENGTH input shafts depending on what transmission they were behind. My suggestion: get an AX4 or AX5 manual transmission from behind a 4wd, 4 cylinder 87 or newer Cherokee or Comanche. Get the transfer case with the transmission, that way you know the transfer case will mount up. Also get the entire transfer case shift linkage, including the bracket on the inside of the transmission tunnel.

No, but I did notice the ad said FRONT wheel drive.

I will be in the area between Christmas and New Years Eve if you need somebody to take a look at it. If it is as clean as it looks it would definitely be worth the $2k despite being 2wd.

Considering that ground and neutral are supposed to be tied together in the fuse/breaker box, for a ground circuit to have 50 volts on it the wiring must be really messed up. The question I have is, what is the impedance of the 50v signal? Wire a light bulb between that ground and neutral and see if it lights. If so there is a HUGE problem somewhere. If not, measure the voltage across the bulb. If it reads 0 now that means that ground wire is simply not hooked up and you're seeing the magnetic inductance between the ground and the hot wires.

What Pete said.

Even though they are listed as one ton, and supposedly came off one, IMO D60 rear and D44 front is 3/4 ton running gear at most. The Dana 44 uses the same u joints as the large joints D30 shafts, and these will not hold up to 35" tires and a locker. Not even the Alloy USA Chromoly joints. CTM might, but at $250 a piece they were out of my price range. One of those joints cost more than I paid for my D60 front axle. If you want to run 37" or larger tires, look for a Ford high pinion driver side drop D60 out of a F350, either full width or narrowed. This will be a lot of work to put under a Comanche, though. 35" build up your D30 with a truss and chromoly shafts and stock up on u joints. 33" or smaller use your stock D30 front axle. For an inexpensive rear axle I had a 29 spline 8.25" under mine and it survived a locker and 35" tires even doing a rear wheel stand while hopping. Twisted the drive shaft in half, but the axle was fine.

When the face of mine started leaking due to a pin hole rusted through it I coated it inside and out with seal-all. No leak since.

:agree:

Go spring over axle in the rear, use the 4.5" spring with 1.75" spacers on the front should sit close to level. If they are not adjustable you may have to get different control arms and track bar, though. Other option is to use the 4.5" front lift, and get a 4.5" lift spring pack from Hell Creek for the rear.

From a 1996 it will be 23 spline.

30-43le is the Mopar "name" for a AW4. I have seen both 2wd and 4wd versions with this number on it. The one you show in the picture is definitely 4wd.

http://www.custom4x4fabrication.com/recovery.html $70 Still going strong after heavy abuse since 2008.

The stock center bolts are 10mm metric with a 12mm head. New ones you can choose between 5/16" which is way loose, or 3/8". The 3/8" ones fit the leafs pretty good, but have a 9/16" head. The hole in the perch is 1/2". I usually grind the 9/16 head down on a bench grinder until it fits in the 1/2" hole.

Pretty much, yes.

Even stock large u joints shafts (from 95 or newer XJ, or any TJ) are stronger than even the Alloy USA Chromoly u joint. Chromoly shafts in a D30 serve no purpose unless you're running CTM u joints. For the cost of a pair of those and alloy shafts you can install a Dana 60.

Did you use a new center bolt? If so, did you make sure the head of the new one fits in the hole of the spring perch?

Waggy 44 is low pinion. Your stock D30 is high pinion, so even though the 44 has larger gears, the strength increase is minimal. I found the u joints (even the Spicer cold forged solid cross 5-760X were the weak link in my D30. Problem is that D44 axles use those same u joints. So the Waggy 44 offers no strength increase to speak of while lowering your ground clearance from the larger pumpkin. The ONLY advantage would be matching the Rodeo 6 bolt pattern.

So if you don't have floor pans, you cannot pass inspection? Don't know; haven't lived there since 1993. I just know the neighbor bought a car with a riveted floor pan and ended up taking it to the scrap yard because he couldn't get it plated. Indeed. Interestingly, a glued lap joint can be stronger than the base material: Cool, a Dutch video. "Ideeen kriijgen vorm" means "Ideas take shape".

You might need a pilot bearing, but the stock one may not fit. I think maybe Pete had this problem and might know what you need that works.

Aside from that, at least in Ontario, riveted floor pans will not pass an inspection. Other states/provinces may have similar laws.

You can actually reuse your current AX15, just swapping over the bellhousing with the matching clutch release parts.

Factory front skid plate is the same, as is the transfer case skid plate. Fuel tank skid is not anywhere close.