Dana 35 to 44 knuckle conversions

[kryptonitecb]

My experience with the d35 has not been pleasant. Granted I run mil 16.5's with 37's and 4 inch back spacing. Every other month I had to repack the bearings due to burnt grease. On to of that the bearings required replacement every 3 months. This was a daily driven vehicle at the time and only saw medium trails about once a month. The d35 ttb is not able to handle large or heavy tires. A knuckle swap or bigger axle is necessary or you will need to constantly check the bearings.

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[4x4junkie]

man those statements need qualification.


i cant even come close to agreeing that the d35 bearing setup will hold any 35 in tires trouble free. light radial 35's are doable with increased maintenance. heavy 35's no way. in hard stop conditions the brakes cook the fawk out of the grease.


the offset of the wheel tire type and actual miles and driving conditions are the variants that make these suggestions out of place for me.

granted i run over weight as well, the d35 required constant attention. and often they are improperly setup and maintained...but setup was not an issue for me.


4x4 junkie considering i usually drive more miles in a year then your bearings seen from 94 to 2009, i can say for sure the d35 setup sux ass for big tires. a set of bias 35's driven to the wear bars in one year in city traffic will eat 2 sets of bearings easily. at least...if you consider if you have to grease wheel bearings more then twice a year especially if the thing never was over the hub in mud in 25-30k miles....something is wrong.


its asking too much of them to run 10 inch wheels and 35 in bias ply tires.



so light 35's on sane wheels are one thing.

swampers on typical 10 on wheels are another.

where you drive, how much you drive, how much you weigh are key.


if you want ruthless 37's and setup some 488 gears running the ttb 44 knuckles or f150/bronco abs spindles and outer stubs are a worthy investment if you want to stay narrow as possible.

though using the f series abs spindles required custom parts for the brakes that are simple to fab with 3/8 plate to use the big calipers.

Not really sure how you can "qualify" an experience... (especially a 1st-hand one) Clearly there is a difference in how you (ab)use your truck if it's not in how you are setting your bearings up (for one thing I've never once gotten my brakes so hot to cook the grease in the bearings Maybe that's your problem).

I had Goodyear MT/R-Ks on my truck for the last 2½ years, which are very well on the heavy side for 35" tires (dunno what difference bias vs radial makes... most are same or lighter than the MT/R-K), and that's after another 6 years of BFG MTs in the same size (forget about the 25K miles on 33s the axle had before it went under my BII).

With so many people around that don't have issues with it (including a guy used to be on here I think his nic was Warrlord ran 38" bias swampers on his big Supercab for a few years, also didn't have problems with the bearings)... I cannot agree that the axle's design is solely the reason for those who are having problems with it.
If swapping to D44 knuckles fixes the issue for you, then great! No argument the D44 design is more robust. But for those of us that don't have issues with the D35's setup, D44 knuckles would not do a thing for us. This is why we attempt to weed out whatever the causes the OP might have with his setup (use of cheap bearings, mixing races, overtightening, etc.) before recommending something more extreme like the D44 knuckles, which would require the OP make modifications to his rear axle also, and then get new wheels and have to switch his tires over to them.


I don't know how many miles you drive a year Bobby (you did not say), however I can tell you that I have driven more than plenty enough miles to wear out 3 sets of bias Super Swampers all on the same bearings.
I've never once made a secret of it... (why should I??) I pack the bearings about every 4 years (or about 20K miles, which I'm actually overdue on now) with Castrol wheel bearing grease (nothing special about the grease, just plain disc brake lithium grease, have used Sta-Lube grease a couple times too), tighten the bearings to 35 ft-lbs while spinning the rotor a number of times back & forth, loosen the nut & retighten to 15 inch-lbs (just barely snug by hand, really), then put the lock ring on and tighten the outer locknut to 250ft-lbs. Been doing it this way since the truck (axle) was new. I dunno what else to tell you.
You admit to running it over weight so maybe you think that might have something to do with it??

 

[brinker88]

Not really sure how you can "qualify" an experience... (especially a 1st-hand one) Clearly there is a difference in how you (ab)use your truck if it's not in how you are setting your bearings up (for one thing I've never once gotten my brakes so hot to cook the grease in the bearings Maybe that's your problem).

I had Goodyear MT/R-Ks on my truck for the last 2½ years, which are very well on the heavy side for 35" tires (dunno what difference bias vs radial makes... most are same or lighter than the MT/R-K), and that's after another 6 years of BFG MTs in the same size (forget about the 25K miles on 33s the axle had before it went under my BII).

With so many people around that don't have issues with it (including a guy used to be on here I think his nic was Warrlord ran 38" bias swampers on his big Supercab for a few years, also didn't have problems with the bearings)... I cannot agree that the axle's design is solely the reason for those who are having problems with it.
If swapping to D44 knuckles fixes the issue for you, then great! No argument the D44 design is more robust. But for those of us that don't have issues with the D35's setup, D44 knuckles would not do a thing for us. This is why we attempt to weed out whatever the causes the OP might have with his setup (use of cheap bearings, mixing races, overtightening, etc.) before recommending something more extreme like the D44 knuckles, which would require the OP make modifications to his rear axle also, and then get new wheels and have to switch his tires over to them.


I don't know how many miles you drive a year Bobby (you did not say), however I can tell you that I have driven more than plenty enough miles to wear out 3 sets of bias Super Swampers all on the same bearings.
I've never once made a secret of it... (why should I??) I pack the bearings about every 4 years (or about 20K miles, which I'm actually overdue on now) with Castrol wheel bearing grease (nothing special about the grease, just plain disc brake lithium grease, have used Sta-Lube grease a couple times too), tighten the bearings to 35 ft-lbs while spinning the rotor a number of times back & forth, loosen the nut & retighten to 15 inch-lbs (just barely snug by hand, really), then put the lock ring on and tighten the outer locknut to 250ft-lbs. Been doing it this way since the truck (axle) was new. I dunno what else to tell you.
You admit to running it over weight so maybe you think that might have something to do with it??

I'd like to stop the beginnings of this pissing match right here in it's tracks.

First off, let me retract my last statement. By "never" having a problem with them, I meant that they wore prematurely, but never as fast as the PO was stating. I usually end up replacing the bearings every 6-8 months. Yes, the D35 wheel bearing set up BLOWS. Yes, 35+ tires (no matter WHAT the weight of them) will prematurely wear the bearings, no matter how much you maintain them. Mine lasted slightly longer due to repacking them EVERY wheeling trip (weekly), keeping the weight of my rig down, running aluminum wheels and ligh(er) 35's. That is not the point of this thread though (The P.O. already knows the setup sucks). I would say that most people would benefit from the 44 parts when running the larger tires.

*carry on*

 

[4x4junkie]

Very well...

I need to repack mine one of these days as the last time I did it was in '09... Maybe I'm finally due to find a surprise in there, I don't know (I'll certainly let you guys know if I do), but they still have yet to make any noise.

 

[bobbywalter]

no pissing match.



miles ranged 35-90k...60 plus generally but there was a few years the ranger got a break and was 30 ish....


overloaded for sure. overloading is what was killing the 8.8's and arb's. which is what spurred the d 60 swap. if the d35 parts were not waning and of such poor quality theres no telling what i would have ended up doing. i had a heavy duty setup in development when i left detroit that died on the vine.


we have discussed this many times....and literally i was driving 10 years of your miles in one one year iirc. city traffic sucked.

bias tires are not the roundest tires out there, neither are military 37's. i have been nothing short of astounded by the time you get from the bearings. the lack of salty roads makes it easier on everything.

with 33's i have no issues really....and usually the rollers dont change color till 20-30 k even with bigger tires.

things i wasted regular(even with the 60) are the inner spindle bearings and with the ttb slip shafts as well. i have constant vibration issues from them being slopped out....but i run it hard locked in most of the winters when it was necessary.

and you have never even seen a rotted one


lucky you must be nice.


only guys i see that dont have problems, dont drive shit tons of hard miles. i know the desert guys dont seem to prefer them for some strange reason.



i have absolutely no doubt you get the miles you do with your setup where you live and drive..


i also have absolutely no doubt, if you ran the same routes i did in my truck, even setting up spicer bearings yourself, you would have had the same rate of failure i experienced..