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Dana 44 rear brakes


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I recently pulled another D44 from the pick and pull, but it has no brakes. All it has is the backing plates, no hardware, no nothing. I was looking on Rock Auto to find what I need and lord am I confused! Can someone give me a list of everything I need to put brakes on this thing from scratch? I know I need the shoes, drums, wheel cylinders, springs, and hard lines but do I need anything else? What about the mounting hardware? If anyone could shed some light on this or link me some sort of package deal I would appreciate it a ton.

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If you buy a small parts kit, the kit will include all the springs and retainer clips you'll need. What you'll be missing will be the lower spacer bar that runs between the two shoes to actuate the parking brake, and the parking brake arm that gets pinned to one shoe to push on the transfer bar. I believe the transfer bars are the same for both sides, the lever arms are side-specific.

 

Those are probably dealer-only. The good news is that you can probably grab them off any Dana 35 rear axle. I don't think those are any different for the narrower shoes.

 

The small parts kits may or may not include the push bars (I'm sure there's a technical term, but I don't know what it is) that fit into the pistons on the wheel cylinders and connect to the upper ends of the shoes. Those, too, can be pirated from a Dana 35.

 

The hardest and most expensive part for the D44 brakes is the backing plates, because those are NOT the same as the Dana 35. As long as you have those, you're off to a good start.

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Thank god I have those backing plate :thumbsup: So in essence a "Drum brake hardware kit" will provide everything I need to mount up the parts? I will go pull those bars from the pick and pull tomorrow and hopefully order the rest of the parts tomorrow night. Hopefully I will have this D44 in by this weekend.

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Why in the world do you want to retain the crappy drum brakes? This is a great opportunity to convert to disks, since you have the backing plates. Prolly the easiest would be Ford Explorer disk brake conversion; then you'd only need the spacer plate fabbed (or buy them for $20 or so). ZJ disks on the D44 have been done many times to. Another option.

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Another option is you can pull the entire drum assemblys off your D35 and swap it to your D44

But then he'll have 1-3/4" brakes instead of 2-1/2" brakes.

 

The backing plates are different. You can't put the 2-1/2" drums onto a D35 with 1-3/4" brakes ... I've tried. If you put the 1-3/4" drums on a D44, the drums don't extend back as far as the backing plate and you won't have contact on the full width of the shoes.

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Another option is you can pull the entire drum assemblys off your D35 and swap it to your D44

But then he'll have 1-3/4" brakes instead of 2-1/2" brakes.

 

The backing plates are different. You can't put the 2-1/2" drums onto a D35 with 1-3/4" brakes ... I've tried. If you put the 1-3/4" drums on a D44, the drums don't extend back as far as the backing plate and you won't have contact on the full width of the shoes.

 

I realize, but another option he has instead of finding all the D44 drum parts he could swap all the D35 stuff on. Currently I've got D44 drums on my D35, don't ask me why, it's a really long story.

 

Yes MjPioneer you will need the 10x2.5 inch shoes, make sure you don't get the D35 shoes, they are 10x1.75 inch

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