Flanged Dana 44 Housing Question??

I am helping a buddy get his 78 moving again for the deer season. He picked up a D44 flanged & D30 from a 73 cj5 to upgrade from the AMC 20, and get a better ratio.

The jeep is used strickly off-road on an East Texas deer leae (logging roads, woods & mud). The LS side gears in the donor 73 running gear were toast (bits and pieces everywhere). Since I had a spare D44 spool in the garage, we opted to install the spool in the 73 D44 flanged rear end.

The spool is a YUKON 2 09... here's where it gets interesting. The axles fit the spool (30 spline) the ring gear fits the spool... BUT the spool doesn't fit in the rear end housing!! The ring gear face and carrier bearing locations are different by over .250 WOW, that's hard to make fit lol. The carrier bearing locations appear to be not a wide as the other D44s. I recently install the exact same spool into my 79 waggy D44 front axle without any issues??

What gives? Apparently the jeep Dana 44 flanged axle housing from a 73 cj is different than other D44 axles?? Aside from the early D44-2, Ford reverse cuts and the later Rubicon D44's (thick ring gear), I "thought" they were all the same!>>>Chevy, Dodge, Jeep, 1/2T 3/4T etc.

Has anyone run into this before? Does it take spools and/or lockers that are specifically for the 72-74 flanged D44?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

BTW it ain't my first rodeo, I have set up many front and rear ends before... BUT never run into anything like this!

 

Sounds like You have a spool issue. The '72-'75 CJ (as all other 30 spline CJ) Dana 44 used the exact same case as your '79 Wagoneer 44. The only difference would be the gear ratio as the ring gear flange is in a different location depending on gear ratio. With a Dana 44 3.73-1 to 2.54-1 requires one case while 3.92-1 down to 5.38-1 requires another. 10 and 19 spline cases (early CJ's) use a different case altogether.
Is it possible you have a spool for the wrong ratio and it's causing the ring gear to hit the drive pinion pushing the case to one side? Maybe shims stacked too thick behind the carrier bearings? Was this purchased brand new or used? I know Yukon had an issue with some of their limited slips being mis-machined in the carrier bearing journal area recently.



Sent from my iPhone

 

I bet you are correct, thanks! I KNEW that.. but it never dawned on me in my confussed and ****ed off state. Makes perfect sense, the waggy got 4.10s with the spool... SOOO the same model spool would not work with 3.73s.

Thanks! search is on for a 3.73 and down D44 full spool.