aussieguy

A lot of talk about buying D60 axles. I see some people here wheel super hard with 40 inch tires and seem to have no problems with their D44s. Are people installing 60s out of hyped up fear? List what size tires you were running, what you broke on your D44 axles, front or back and after how many miles.

Also note if you are doing just fine with your D44s with 37 or larger tires.

captjay

well i wheel i gues u would say moderately hard. rocks, sand, mud. but i take it easy on the pedal.

locked front and rear 5.13 gears, d30, d44, stock axle shafts, 37x13.50x16 shoes

front d30: cap fell off on u-joint resulting in wallowed out outer shaft while driving on paved road

rear d44: bent pass side axle shaft while offroading. basically i didnt see a 2 foot drop off on the rock, rear end slid to the side into the dropoff. resulting in bent axle shaft. still driveable with visually noticable wheel wobble

thats the only damage i have had on axles and drivetrain. installed at 15,000 miles, just broke over 40,000 miles

JPTwinz

I went with RCV Performance CV-style front axle shafts BEFORE carnage to the weak u-joints could occur from rolling 40x15.50 tires on the stock Rubi D44.

aussieguy

That was a good move, seems people bust the u joints more than anything else.

captjay

the engineers at Jeep probably designed it that way for a reason. if we the consumer know a thing or two about weak links, then id say they probably do to. the ujoint is the cheapest repair if only the joint goes out. even having to replace the entire axle shaft is way cheaper than ring and pinion.

aussieguy

Guess not many people have broken the D44 axles.

wayoflife

if there are actually people out there who claim are really wheeling super hard with 40" tires and supposedly have no problems with their dana 44's, i'd have to say they are full of it or have no idea what wheeling really hard is. running 37" toyo's on my dana 44's, i have gone through 2 rear lockers, 1 front locker and broke a front chromoly drive shaft at the shaft - NOT the u-joint. this break ultimately ruined my entire front axle and that's when i upgraded to a dynatrac prorock 60 front axle and 40" toyo's. unfortuantely, i could not afford to upgrade the rear yet and this proved to be a mistake as in no time at all, i ended up blowing out my rear ring gear, in the freezing rain and with 10 miles of the dusy ershim left to go.

now, if there is any hype going on, it's with all the people thinking that beefing up their axle tubes with sleeves is gonna make everything okay. and, no offense meant to those of you running CV joint front shafts but, while these are super strong, i personally would prefer to break a u-joint than an axle shaft. at least a broken u-joint is easy to fix and won't do any additional harm to your axle.

if you are seriously thinking about running 40" tires or, really do wheel your jeep hard, i would highly recommend getting a set of 60's. trust me, i speak from experience.

exactly

wayoflife

How's this for a break? Again, this is a CHROMOLY front shaft...


As you can see, the axle blew just above the splines and NOT at the U-joint...


Because the break occured at the shaft, I later found that our locker and carrier bearings were FUBAR...




Still think it's a good idea to have bullet proof joints? To make things worse, the front axle tube where the seal goes on the driver side was totally mangled and ultimately forced me to replace the whole thing....


Here's a shot of my rear diff after we pulled the cover off on the Dusy....


Close up of the gear....


Dana 60's are a lot bigger inside and out and it's shear size difference alone makes it a lot stronger. In addition to shaft strength, when you start getting up into 5.38's on a Dana 44, things get very small and weak. Sure, I was able to run 37's on my 44's for a while but, if you really do wheel hard, it's just a matter of time before something gives.

Piginajeep

thats exactly why I'm sticking with the u-joints and did not upgrade to RCV.

redman619420

I love the Dusy!!! Cant wait to do it again this year!!