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Dana 44 drum brakes


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  • 3 weeks later...

As dphillips indicated at the beginning of his posting:

 

"I would like to make this clear, I tried doing the disc swap to my 88 and it will not work as per these instructions. This how to is 1990+ c clip axles only. In order to fit this swap to non c clip, holes will need to be drilled for the backing plate to line up. Most importantly about the holes, I did not do it, but believe you will have to tweak the center for the bearing pressed axle shaft. For sure you will have to for the 4 holes that hold the backing plates. However the brake lines and the booster will still work. "

 

I am looking for a prefabbed backing plate in order to perform this swap.  Other people that have tried this swap on a D44 have had to re-drill the bolt holes and widen the axle tube opening.  The kits that I have looked at are $600 to $800.  I can get most of the parts from a JY.  I just want the backing plates prefabbed.

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1 hour ago, 87MJTIM said:

I am looking for a prefabbed backing plate in order to perform this swap.  Other people that have tried this swap on a D44 have had to re-drill the bolt holes and widen the axle tube opening.  The kits that I have looked at are $600 to $800.  I can get most of the parts from a JY.  I just want the backing plates prefabbed.

 

I had a Teraflex kit originally installed on my 91 D35 c-clip years ago. When I finally found an MJ D44, all I had to do to transfer the disk brakes over was to purchase new D44 backing plates from Teraflex (the prefabbed plates you are looking for) and the correct D44 preload spacer since it had different specs than the c-clip spacer in order to seat the axle seals correctly. Wasn't that expensive, but that was eight years ago. I would never consider to "re-drill the bolt holes and widen the axle tube opening" on the axle flanges. That's a pretty stupid thing to do IMO...

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7 hours ago, HOrnbrod said:

 

 I would never consider to "re-drill the bolt holes and widen the axle tube opening" on the axle flanges. That's a pretty stupid thing to do IMO...

 

Agreed.  There a many youtube videos that show how to line up,  re-drill, and widen the holes.  Totally changing the integrity of the flanges.  Not something I want to do.

 

I will inquirer TerraFlex.

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12 minutes ago, WahooSteeler said:

Don, any particular reason after obtaining the prefabbed Teraflex backing plates that you went with Ford parts from there? Why not Jeep calipers and rotors etc? 

 

Because originally several years before I found the D44 axle, I had installed a Teraflex disk brake kit on my D35 c-clip axle. The only differences between their D35 c-clip and D44 disk brake kits were backing plates and spacers. The Explorer calipers/pads and Jeep rotors they used were the same for both kits so I just reinstalled them when the D44 went in. Make sense?    :))

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10 minutes ago, HOrnbrod said:

 

Because originally several years before I found the D44 axle, I had installed a Teraflex disk brake kit on my D35 c-clip axle. The only differences between their D35 c-clip and D44 disk brake kits were backing plates and spacers. The Explorer calipers/pads and Jeep rotors they used were the same for both kits so I just reinstalled them when the D44 went in. Make sense?    :))

 

Yep. So for redundant clarification, the Teraflex backing plates for a Jeep D44 are TRUE bolt on, i.e. no modification needed for the mounting holes or axle hole?  

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1 minute ago, HOrnbrod said:

 

Exactly.

 

Well then, IF Teraflex will still sell just the backing plates THAT makes the conversion much easier IMO, and can save a few bucks on the other parts either by JY items or decent aftermarket as Tim has said also. I'm guessing though that they will run @$250 for a pair with the parking brake assembly, Crown sells them for XJ D35's for around that price. 

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11 hours ago, WahooSteeler said:

 

Well then, IF Teraflex will still sell just the backing plates THAT makes the conversion much easier IMO, and can save a few bucks on the other parts either by JY items or decent aftermarket as Tim has said also. I'm guessing though that they will run @$250 for a pair with the parking brake assembly, Crown sells them for XJ D35's for around that price. 

 

Busy afternoon and evening and just able to follow up on this thread. I looked online for the oldest Teraflex catalog I could and found the 2010 version in PDF (attached). I was curious if it had the parts from the kit listed individually, but it did not. However, it DID have an illustration of which axles/bolt patterns go with which kit. See page 74.

 

So I'm happy to report that I called Teraflex and was able to order the "Early Jeep" D44 specific backing plates...direct bolt on, no drilling. I told them I had an 88 MJ with a D44 and needed the ones from the kit #4354410 along with the correct preload spacers for the bearings which is #86262. Sales guy confirmed these parts. If you have a  '91 or later D44 with the "non-rectangular" mounting bolt pattern you'll want backing plates from kit #4354420 and spacers #86261. But obviously confirm your axle and with the phone sales rep. $300 shipped for a pair (free shipping). That ain't cheap but for me I'm willing to pay the "convenience fee" for new, bolt on backing plates with parking brake assembly. I can pick and choose on whether I go new or JY on the rest of the parts when I'm ready to install everything, although I'm pretty sure I'll go new, but that's just me. At least I didn't have to plunk down $700 for the full kit now, but I wanted to get the key components before they suddenly go away. Because my truck is not a DD, I'm the type I "plan" on doing something like this and then 4yrs have gone by and I haven't done anything meanwhile the parts are no longer available. I'm confident ZJ or Explorer rotors and calipers will still be available for years to come, but XJ/MJ D44 direct bolt on disc brake backing plates are likely losing demand more and more every year. 

TeraFlex_2010_Catalog.pdf

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