dana 44 question

[hockeyryan]

im looking at sasing my ranger but i dont know if these axles are the best
its a pair of axles from a 78 F150 i believe
a hp dana 44 and a matching 9inch
any input would be great.
i have looked at eb axles but they dont come up that often on craigslist here and i dont feel like paying 900+ of a pair
also if anyone has some pics of a truck with these axles under their truck can u put them up so i can see how much wider it will be

thanks

 

[brinker88]

A few guys have done it on here. I would suggest personally if you wanna keep it a DD, dont go full width

 

[t120r]

My truck is full width. I don't see any difference between a full width and EB width when it comes to streetabiliy. Both require a lot of work to fine tune to the ranger chassis, but it's not impossible... Or cheap to do it the right way. Just a warning, you will need about 6" lift min for the full width axle to work. I have 6" lift and I had to cut a little off the engine crossmember for the pumpkin to clear. The F150 front end is the best one to use. The caster, radius arm and pinion angle can all be adjusted individually. The bronco axle requires a little more fabbing with drop brackets and the caster can be set with the degreed bushings. If you are going to do it, feel free to email/pm me and I'll help you out best I can.

 

[dangerranger83]

Only thing with full width with a ranger on the street is the cops dont like how the wheel stick out of the wheel wells......but that all just depends on your state laws and if they are picky or not.

 

[t120r]

Mine are 10.5" wide with bushwhacker flares, so almost looks stock from behind. Running 12.5's would have me concerned. SAS is in no way cheap.

 

[hockeyryan]

I will be using it as a trail rig after the sas. im currently looking for a car since i now work farther away from home.
im gonna look in to it some more but the pair of axles came up on craigslist for 400 and i though it was a pretty good price so i started thinking about it more.

 

[t120r]

If it's strictly a trail rig, then it's no big deal how you do it. If you plan on using it on the streets, then there's quite a few things that have to be calculated.

 

[trail B2]

I've always thought those would be the axles for that kinda conversion.I would consider $400 pretty decent but not as sure about price though.I've seen threads where they cut those down to eb width with a right front eb axle and cut the tube.

 

[t120r]

$400 isn't bad at all. But if you don't get all the attaching stuff with it, the cost goes up. You'll want the radius arms, coil buckets from the F150, springs, etc. Everything you can possibly get from the donor truck.

The EB axle tube mod works fine except it uses a smaller U-joint. If you're gonna do that, it makes more sense to order an aftermarket shaft. That way you get a stronger axle and not a weaker one.

 

[cmequestionu]

Something to keep in mind if you shorten your axle is you might have to get custom axle shaft. If you break it you need to have another custom one made. These are usually at a higher cost. I just found wheels that had more back spacing.

 

[crazywhiteboy]

im running fullwidth on my 97 without any flares or anything. just cut the fenders.

these are 38.5x16 baja claws/tsls on 15x10 steelies with 4" of b.s


http://www.flickr.com/photos/63019931@N02/5731605307/http://www.flickr.com/people/63019931@N02/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63019931@N02/5834867328/http://www.flickr.com/people/63019931@N02/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63019931@N02/5834867250/http://www.flickr.com/people/63019931@N02/

and....its my DD! put 2500 miles on it soo far and havent been pulled over, yet.

 

[dangerranger83]

I will say if I had to upgrade my axle then I would go FW D44 but I would make it so that I can run my long arms still.

 

[59bisquik]

Here is my FW swap with a D44/8.8 combo. 3.75 backspaced wheels with 35x15x12.50's. The wider track is great offroad and not an issue for a daily driver either! For some reason, I dont have any direct front or rear shots like Crazy does.
Old pic...right after I did the swap.

More recent pics...

 

[crazywhiteboy]

More recent pics...

how do you like those mtr's? when i go to tons, im considering those, or bias rockers, in the 40" flavor.

 

[--weezl--]

Only thing with full width with a ranger on the street is the cops dont like how the wheel stick out of the wheel wells......but that all just depends on your state laws and if they are picky or not.

he lives in canada, no state laws to deal with


from what i remember, the laws in BC are basically that the tires can't stick out more than 2" past the REAR fenders

bushwacker make a set of flares that stick way the hell out specifically for this purpose, worth looking into, if you're going to be more than 2"...

also, i've always found for vehicle equipment issues, other than the richmond RCMP, as long as you're very polite, they let a lot of things slide... richmond RCMP tends to give you tickets regardless, IF they pull you over... (my one encounter was my dad got stopped at a road block, and his front plate was behind his seat... though he got a 30 day inspection notice or 150$ fine, so he put the plate on got it inspected and ticket was gone completely)