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For this project I chose a Dana 44 front axle it has reasonable strength, low price, and good parts availability.
The particular D44 I have came from a 197? J-20 3/4 ton pickup. Since it's a 3/4 ton it came with 8-lug hubs. I swapped those out a set of 6 lug hubs with my friend, Ashley, as he was wanting a set of 8 lug parts. Once, I had the axle stripped down I decided to swap the J-20's long side axle, which is 35.5" long for a long side axle from a 80-84 Jeep Wagooner, which is 32.12" long. I picked up a couple of Waggy Shafts from a friend of Erik B's, Jason Wilson. So, in 6-lug form my front axle will be about 61.5 - 62" wide. Since J-20's are spring under vehicles I had to grind a good sized flat spot in the cast housing to weld a spring perch to. I removed the drivers side perch and made another perch to put the spring on top of the axle. I set the spring perches 29" apart, duplicating a stock toyota front axle.
I also took this opportunity to rotate the knuckles a few degrees. The pass side was easy since I was cutting the knuckle off to shorten that side.
The drivers side was a bit more difficult. I used the thin, .045 dewalt grinder discs, to cut the weld out. I started out by making a vertical cut into
the weld right at the face of the knuckle to the approx depth of the axle tube. I did this all the way around. Then I made a series of short grinder cuts
horizontally into the weld with the grinder disc just skimming the surface of the axle tube. Repeating this process 10-12 times I was able to remove all the
weld material in about 10 mins.
... more to come ...
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Parts involved in this Dana 44 build up:
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