coolwind57

These D44s aren't C-clip or anything are they, Pete? Just held in by the backer plate 4-bolts, right?

Ok...looks like seal removal requires removal of an retainer as well as the bearing. This might get interesting.

Same here, the D44 spring plates are a lot worse condition than my originals. Are you still planning on running the Load-sensing valve? I do have the diff cover bracket for it if you need it. I'm not going to use it. I'm going to go ahead and pull my axle shafts. I have found evidence of one outer seal leaking, coating the brake area. I'm off now to look up how to do it. I think I had pulled axle shafts in the past, but I hadn't done one with limited slip before. I was really kind of hoping to not do a complete rebuild with new bearings and such. And rebuilding that LSD....oh boy. It would be pushing my comfort level.

Just went out and measured both axle tube diameters. D44= 2-3/4" D35= 2-1/2". I also measured my truck's axle plates/brackets (as best I could with the D35 still on the truck). It appears that the D44 plates that I got from the seller are the same. The ends of my U-bolts seem to match the D44's hole diameters, although I could not get the pairs to fit into them as I held them up to slid on. I think this is due to the slight distortion of the U-bolts having been torqued tight, but I'm not sure. I was laying on cold, wet ground so discomfort trumped some accuracy in my inspection here. It would had been interesting to check the diameter of the D44's U-bolts. I think the guy cut them off to remove the axle anyhow, so I didn't even think of grabbing them. This Dana 44 was full of road grime, but there is no evidence of any wetness at pinion yoke or near backing plate. He must have had some pretty significant engine/trans leaks, but the road grime appeared dry, overall. I spent an hour or so scrubbing the axle last night, with more cleaning later today. I pulled the cover and although the lube seemed low and dark, the gears looked fabulous. Nice and shiny mating surfaces and no distortion. I had mentioned earlier that the limited slip works at least when spinning the yoke by hand. Good stuff here, guys. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I'll report back as things progress.

Thanks, fellas.

Anyone have stats on Dana 44s throughout the MJ years--specifically about gear ratios? Are automatic for 1990 showing up as 3:55 or 3:54 ratios? How the heck can one tell a 3:55 from a 3:54 by rotation?! I bought a D44 "with 3:55 ratio" last night and after cleaning up today, I can make out 3 54 on the tag. I pulled the cover and the ring gear last digits are 46-13, which comes up as 3:538. Looks like I just bought a 3:54 to match up to my 3:55 front D30. I should had pulled the cover-- but is this even a concern? Can I match this up with my 3:55 front diff D30? I searched here but only found some comments regarding this on other sites. What's your thoughts on this, fellas? Just for kicks, here's a couple comments from another Jeep forum: Dude #1: "Don't be alarmed if you see 3.54 on the gear. It's basically the same as the newer 3.55, they just started to round up." Another dude said: 3.54 and 3.55 will work together but they are different.A 39 tooth ring with an 11 tooth pinion is a 3.55.A 46 tooth ring with a 13 tooth pinion is a 3.54.So the 3.54 has a bigger pinion and is thereby a somewhat stronger gear set.

Very good. i suppose I won't know the shank diameter until I pull my D35 off the springs. Well, that kinda kills my plans of doing the swap in a couple of hours (or maybe even a day). Now....i suppose I need to find a supplier.

I'm assuming the centering pin is the pin sticking up from the center of the leaf springs, just under the U-bolts in the pic above. What's an acceptable fix for this if my spring's centering pin is indeed too narrow for the D44's hole? Add some sort of adapter or shroud over my existing pin? Modify the hole in the axle in some way? What have other's done?

I spun the yoke by hand and the axle shafts spun in the same direction, so I suppose at least with hand-speed the LSD is working. I'll take a week or so cleaning the outside of this axle up, ordering new brake parts and getting some POR-15 on it. Then, I'll likely take it over to a driveline shop and have them eyeball it. So if that LSD is worn or bad, what are the repercussions? Just an open diff? Noisy clutch discs? Any harm running it like that? I am diggin' what I'm reading about the benefits of LSD, so I have no intention of neglecting it or being without it. I had asked him if he himself had driven on this axle and he confirmed he did and that there were no issues with it. The reason he sold it was that he was converting to a more heavier duty off-road truck and he already had an 8.25 sitting around with the serious axle ratio he desired. His truck was rough, man. Looks like he's going for more of a off-road toy than anything.

The axle (and driveshaft) was from a short bed. Mine's a long. So I didn't buy the driveshaft. I'll see where my driveshaft sits and adjust accordingly once i get my D44 in place. My truck has the load sensing valve removed. I wasn't aware that the spring plates were different---good thing I nabbed them while I was there. He tossed them in for free. Thanks for the input, Schardein.

How is this not such a good idea for stock arrangement? Perhaps it decreases "splashing effect" or retards critical fluid movement in there or something? Looks like most aftermarket guys are raising the fill hole.

I ran across this mod at http://d44tech.com/DIFF_COVERS.html. I thought this was really kind of cool. Move that fill plug up to increase oil capacity. Use a hole saw to cut out and relocate plug, and reuse your removed material. Pretty ingenious method. Weld both sides and you're good to go. Here's an example of an OEM plug location: And here's a shot of where SOLID puts theirs and not a bad deal for 65-bucks, plus $16.90 to ship to Indiana: And Yukon makes a nice one complete with a magnetic drain plug at the bottom and SS hardware: But I'm totally diggin' what the dude did with his welder and tools for essentially no cost.

Oh hell, that's right! haha Brain fart.

And I shouldn't be concerned with splines not matching up, Pete?

And where does one go for these type of driveshaft mods? Muffler shops? Some sort of specialists? I'm hoping Krustyballer is right in that I won't need to shorten due to the lift.

Cool, thanks for the schooling Pete. Sounds like shortening my driveshaft to accommodate the D44 is in order then.

I was aware of the 1" difference, noted in #2. So, you're saying that shortening my driveshaft is my only option, then correct?

I may have found my unicorn. Tonight, I'm planning on picking up a MJ Dana 44 for fairly cheap, just an hour or so from my house. It has the 3:55 gears that I need to match up to my whining D35. An axle swap is new to me, so I have a few questions: 1. The axle is from a 90 MJ. Does this bring up any issues that you can think of? Mine's an 89. 2. Should I grab the driveshaft? I understand that mine is likely too long due the the longer pinion of the D44. I have only a 2-3 inches of lift if that matters. He wants $80 for the driveshaft. Also, it is from a short bed and my truck is a long bed. I didn't think there were different driveshafts between the two, but I may be wrong. Is shortening my driveshaft a better option than buying his, considering that I have a couple inches of lift? 3. Pardon my ignorance, but he says its a limited slip diff. This doesn't really mean anything significant to me as i swap this over, right? My front axle would match the 3:55 ratio. I'm not really up on whether limited slip is a factor in any way, as I just figured all MJ axles were. Sure appreciate you guys' input. Thanks for being a great resource of knowledge. .

Full gauges. Top of engine dry as a bone. AND relay cover! Very original looking. Looks like no AC.

This one looks like a pretty good deal for what looks like a good-condition MJ. 10-min from me. https://louisville.craigslist.org/cto/d/louisville-1988-jeep-comanche/7083092714.html

We have a case now in my county of residence and work. It's arrived at small town, Indiana USA. I'm working, but nearly the only person in the building. I'm the Facilities Manager and the rest of the folks here are office admin types. They've been coming in throughout the morning and grabbing their laptops and working from home. We have a homeless Vets transitional housing program attached to our building and apparently, we have a concern that one of the guys has had a cough for a week or so. I think a staff there is getting him to a doc this morning for testing. I'm bracing for the results. My A&P school is on Spring Break this week, and looks like they're adding another couple of weeks on to that. The FAA runs the program really--the local college just kinda hosts it. But as of this moment, we're still awaiting FAA to give the school some guidance on how they want to proceed. Exclusive on-line coursework won't cut it in this program. FAA mandates a lot of practical exercises that have us students crawling around on the aircraft. Spring break means I can finally get more than 5 hours of sleep per night so I am certainly loving that. Work full-time and school full-time is essentially like pulling doubles day after day. TOILET PAPER: Ha! I'm married to a Filipina. I'm exempt from the terrible stress involved in seeking out and acquiring large, hording supplies of TP. Got my trusty Kabo (or Tabo in tagalog), so I'm set. Additionally, my home toilet has a wand-type bidet and that's how we roll. The Filipino people don't excel in much compared to the technologies and other advances of the West, but they do have the cleanest bottoms of anyone in the world. Over here, we're the ones in the personal hygiene stone age. Like TP, jasmine rice supplies are low and that ain't good if you're an Asian. My wife is petrified our home supplies will dwindle before we start seeing it on the shelves again. Rice is second only to breathing in her mind.

they need to get a bump stop in there before they bottom out and damage all that good work they invested into.

Good stuff. This makes a lot of sense now. Well, I just read this reply only 30-minutes after I found and fixed the problem. I popped the driver's side Euramtec dome light out. AHA! Red wire had worked its way out of the spade connector that installs on the back of the light. I suppose that bare wire easily found some metal to touch. I hadn't soldered that connector when I first installed my new lights. I popped a new fuse in the block and wouldn't you know that I got lights, PLUS clock, PLUS radio back. What you said above make all the sense now and I thank you for schooling me on this circuit. Power/Ignition OFF has to come from somewhere, right? You're awesome, Minuit.

I've got an electrical issue that, being honest here, I won't have time to begin physically troubleshooting till this weekend. But I thought I'd go ahead and run this across you guys because I'm struggling to resolve this in my head as I continue to ponder it. Here's the deal: My interior lights just quit working. Also my radio. Also my clock. The clock is an XJ junkyard clock I installed a few years ago. First thing I did was pull my RADIO fuse at the fuseblock. It was good. I then pulled my CLOCK fuse. It also was good. Pulled the DOME fused and it was bad, so I popped a new fuse in there and it immediately blew (open door, engine off, key off). Having a handful of fuses, I did a simple cold morning, parking lot troubleshoot and I installed another fuse, this time with the door jam dome light switch pushed in (as if the door was closed). The fuse again blew immediately. That's as far as I've gotten so far and again, I won't have any time to dig into it till Saturday. I have an aftermarket radio that the PO had installed, so I don't really know which circuit he used. I would assume he'd used the correct RADIO circuit. But of course you never know. I'm 99% certain that my XJ clock was plug-and-play if I recall the install correctly, with the MJ already having the correct wire and connector in place for a clock. We can assume that this Jeep connector should have the clock on a separate circuit with a unique CLOCK fuse. I'm a bit confused on why this single DOME circuit is effecting my other two circuits. Am I wrong in assuming that Jeep truly separated these three circuits into 3 separate circuits? Surely no partially joined or anything funky like that. Pic below is my fuse block, identifying the DOME circuit with the bright yellow fuse that's sticking out a bit. Unless you guys chime in with something I'm missing, my plan it to pull my headliner to check wiring. About a Month ago I installed a Lund visor. Maybe one of the fasteners finally rubbed into a dome light wire. I'll then probably pull the dash and check the radio and clock wiring for bad spots. Regardless of this, I still can't resolve why my DOME circuit would effect the other two unless they are somehow.not truly separate circuits. If circuits are sharing paths, then is this a inherent Jeep wiring thing or not and just a previous owner crazy wiring issue that is just now creeping up?

Same here. I did a complete EGR delete, removing EGR, solenoid, all other components and blocked off the intake/header and eliminated all associated vacuum lines. Cleaned up the engine compartment a bit and I certainly expect no vacuum issues of this area of the engine. Ever. Runs like a top.