I heard these axles are pretty rare. Is it worth $350? How hard to find matching rear end?

Link

 

Dana 44 rears are the same and pretty common. Lug count is easily changed. But a drivers drop kingpin is getting rare and I would jump on that.

 

have never heard of that.... may be you can get lucky and its a dana 60.

i did google it and find a link with a bunch of info on it. im not reading all this mess though

Dana 44 Solid Front Axle: Part 1 Reverse Spiral Housing

i just wonder if parts are hard to find or they are weak. he also didnt state if they are front drums or disc

 

Front drums on that model. Disk parts off a later model can be used to swap it or plenty of places make swap kits. The ring and pinion are different from a low pinion model and a few minior differences but for the most part any dana 44 part fits in any dana 44. Reverse cut/high pinion axles are more desirable.

Only more desirable (for us) production dana is the hp dana 60 used in the late 70 "snowfighter" ford. 3/4 ton (f250) with a 1 ton front axle designed to be used as a snowplow truck.

 

So on a 2nd gen, you would go dana44 front and either dana60 or 14 bolt rear? Or maybe even something like this?

 

Gen doesn't matter since A the frames are similar and B sas is all custom anyways.

But with a dana 44 front anything equal or greater would be fine. A dana 44, 60, 70, gm 12, 14 bolt rears all would work. Being its an 8 lug front unless you want to change the pattern I would stick to ford dana 44 or 60. One bolt pattern makes spare tire carry easier.


Many people have problems with a 10 bolt front. We have one in our 59 chevy mud truck that had a big block in it (327 now) on 35s and it held fine. Tink on s10planet runs the factory k5 stuff under her k5 frame swapped baja just fine and she aint scared to get on it.

 

that seems ok. you just never know what kinda locker is in it. is the factory garbage gov loc or a detroit locker?

also the 14bolt rear axle is a big sob weighing in at 500lbs so unless youre gonna be running 36s or bigger youre gonna have ground clearance issues. i got a 14bolt in my k30 which is basically a street truck with 33s and that axle hangs low

 

I would love to have some 35s but probably no bigger. I think 35s are a good medium between too small and too big. This is still my daily driver but I do take her off road a bit. I think the biggest tire you would want to run on a dana44 would be a 35, so that makes me skeptical. If I went 14 bolt, you think 35s would be too small for the axle?

 

Ha yea its a rough inbetween choice. I been running my same set of gm10 bolts for about ten years a lot of those are with 38s under fullsize trucks. So they should be fine with 35s unless you are doing some crazy stuff