bronco 44

[85mustangman]

I cuttently have a jeep dana 30 under my ranger with ironman 4x4 fab long arm kit. I just found a 72 bronco dana 44 i plan on welding up mounts to use the long arm kit. This may be a dumb question but what year range gears will fit the 72 bronco 44, it has 3.50 in it now and i want to install 4.56

 

[Mudhound]

Any D44 gears EXCEPT for reverse rotation will work. You will need to change the carrier along with the gearset since you are going lower than 3.92. You also might want to rethink using the Jeep long arm setup, as the EB ( Early Bronco) radius arms fall pretty much right into place on the Ranger/BII frame, along with the coilsprings, reuse the track bar, with minor rework, and call it a day.

 

[85mustangman]

i really like the adjustibility of the long arm kit, plus it was not cheap. also, i no longer have the ford raduis arm mounts on the frame, everything was customized for the D30 with long arm, including the trac bar and mount. as it sits now the easiest thing would be a rubicon 44 but i hear its not as stong as the bronco 44

 

[Mudhound]

Yeah, the 1st gen Rubi axle is really nothing more than a D44 centersection and the remainder is the standard D30, including the craptasical unit bearings, small bolt pattern, etc. As for keeping the longarm kit, well, if you can either fab the brackets or know someone that can, then go with it.

 

[85mustangman]

k good deal, i think ill just go that rout then, do you know if the 72 bronco d44 has the 5x4.5 bolt pattern like the ranger?

 

[Surrey]

The older trucks used 5x5.5 I think?

 

[dangerranger83]

Wow another person with the ironman long arms on their ranger, guess that makes 3 people that I know of to use them on there D30 SAS.

Do those have cast wedges or welded ones on them....if welded then you can cut them off and put on mounts for the D44 to hook up the longarms, another guy did that to his FW D44.

 

[85mustangman]

http://www.ironman4x4fab.com/Jeep_XJ_Long_Arms/XJ_LAK.html
-those are what i have, i plan on just making the mounts on my buddys mill and welding them on the bronco D44

 

[bobbywalter]

Wow another person with the ironman long arms on their ranger, guess that makes 3 people that I know of to use them on there D30 SAS.

Do those have cast wedges or welded ones on them....if welded then you can cut them off and put on mounts for the D44 to hook up the longarms, another guy did that to his FW D44.

theres more then 3 of them. i dont know how many but i have seen explorer b2 and all types of rangers in mi, nevada, fla, tenn, kentucky,texas, arizona, and cali pa and ohio running the jeep axles with some sort of jeep arms. likely not iron man arms but they were jeep type longarms, i am sure most were home made... almost all of that on the road and at or near the airports/gas station.

the iron man arms i have seen on ex and ranger, some locally driving thru town at various times the last few summers, they had flags so i assume they were at a 4x4 park or the dunes before coming through here. and theres a few in the detroit area i seen regularly before i moved up here. never conversed with them but seen the rigs here and there on the road and occasionally parked. according to a local shop the one ranger had all the stuff from an xj that was storm damaged by some trees installed on it and was supposed to get the 4.0 ax/231 as well. whether that ever happened i dont know. dude came out ahead as the jeep was tweaked to death with door problems and the ins put em money up.



85mustangman , what are you wrecking on the 30? did you truss it?

i am curious because i would rather beef an existing geared locked hp 30 then run a lp eb 44. the pig is almost in the center and in stock form they suck...using a hp 44 makes more sense to me. the appeal of the eb axle is that is is an essential bolt in and retains width. still using stock eb arms and such the performance is ho hum at best as well... plus you need new wheels and at least adapters for the rear or one adapter to run the 5x5.5 spare.

i would be tempted to maybe put 44 c and knuckles on for better bearings but hard to justify with the wheel costs etc unless failures are driving the issue if i had a locked and geared 30. of course you may have that axle sold and more then financing this...man, i cant even call it an upgrade..

for the work/time money involved, i dont see the payoff with the eb axle

unless. its already locked with the type of locker you desire, has the gears, and bad ass aftermarket axles and brakes.

tough situation to be in really. not telling you not to, just putting the idea of the cost totals in full to get where one seems to want to go. bigger better stronger, and at what cost really overall?

good luck

 

[85mustangman]

well 30 i got cheap and it was just for temperory use, its a low pinion with cv joints. and now my truck has a 300 horse 302, it has 31s now but i will get 33s or 35s. Im just worried that the stress from even 33s and the xtra power will tear it to pieces. it held up fine in front of a supercharged 4.0 though

 

[bobbywalter]

low pinion 30 definitely has to go.

hard to imagine a sc 4.0 not murdering it

 

[dangerranger83]

Those are the same arms I am running, looks like they change there design a bit. In the picture that you click on that has the blue bushings, the front lower mounts are adjustable but when you click on it, another set shows up and it doesnt have adjustable lower front mounts. But I do see they connected the two plates together (one that has the anvil) with plate for strength.

I called the guy and told him what I was using it on and he said that Im the second person to use these longarms for a ranger D30 SAS, escourt_gts was the first to use them and the guy remembers him ordering them too.

As far as the D30 that you have, forget about using a LP. Mine is a HP that has CV axles, and when one blows up on me, then I will put u-joint ones (large joints) on it, btw anybody know what year jeeps have those and models?

 

[85mustangman]

it seems all cherokees have high pinion 30s, my low pinion came out of a 97 grand cherokee, i got it with everything for 100 bucks lol, i was bummed though, the next time i was there i found a high pinion with lockout hubs and u joints already out but didnt have the money to get it

 

[85mustangman]

i cant believe i never blew it with the blown 4.0, i beat it too, especially the last week the 4.0 was in it i was tearin up my field spinnin all 4 up o 50mph and drillin bumps haha