When you upgrade, sell me your D44's with the 5.13's installed

 

They probably are a little. There is a little room in there for the axle shaft, but not much, and a axle shaft will flex some. I've bent a 10 bolt before so bad I couldn't lock in the hub (had to take apart the hub and lock it in and put it all back together and never unlock it) because when you bend the axle tube the stub shaft gets pressure on it and its no longer straight out, it sits at a angle. Anyway we don't have to worry about that cause we don't have lockout hubs. You can run like this for a while it just handles funny and will wear the inside of the tires fast and when you take corners you can hear the front tires scuffing and barkin at ya.

The tubes are tappered/bent up about 3/8" to 1/2" up a the ends right near the "C's". Also you can see where the black paint on the Gusset's has chipped away from where it has stressed. Could be a combination of both tubes bent and C's slightly bent/stressed.

I can see the writing on the wall, 14 bolt and 60 front, just a mattr of time now.

 

I found out you arent supposed to post links and refrence certain sites. I like it here and I dont want to cause an issues. I did not read the nube stuff so ignorance and lack of prep on my part.

THe info was good though so to paraphrase:
put your axle on jack stands
wrap both ends with a log chain
place a jack in the center applying upward force on the center of the axle adn downward force on the ends of the axle.
This should apply preload for welding sleeves and trusses, and keep your front axle from smiling
I plan to try this when I beef up my D30 on my future jeep.
i know building a d30 is a waste, but my jeep will come with one and the sleeves and gussets and a home made truss will be under 300 and I can weld it up so cheap mods to make the 30 last.

 

Thanks for the link/article, went to google and typed in "Never go full retarded JK 44" and there it was.

I will get the smile out of it and basically follow what the guy has done. Top truss that ties into the "C's" and across the top of pumkin. It'll be braced up good and 40's is where I stop with this set-up.

 

Here is what I did for my D44 build. Sleeves, homemade truss, Johnny joints for upper CAs. I did want a bent axle with my 38s. I would def recommend TNT Customs. Have seen their truss in use on a heavily modded TJ.

 

Looks good 343 (I couldn't get myself to type what ya got before 343), anyway, I like all the ideas and I don't see why we can't brace these things up to withstand 38-40 inch tires as long as we don't jump the things. I just rock crawl but I do come off of some big drop offs/ledges as slow (locked up brakes and tires skiddin) as I can (thats how I bent the thing, I know when I did it).

This is good for people to follow to catch it before hand if they think their gonna bend it. Course, I really didn't think I was gonna bend mine before I did. I thought sleeves and gussets were enough.