1968 Jeep J2000 Project J2000 Part Iv - 1973 Axle Bolt In Replacement - Photo 10859671

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The '73 axle is nearly an exact bolt-in replacement for the stock '68 axle. Garcia needed to transfer the parking brake cables from the '68 axle onto the '73, and he reused the '68 hard brake lines on the '73 housing. Otherwise, it plunked right in place.

After rebuilding our Dana 44 axles, M.I.T. easily handled the swap into our Project J2008. And don't think you've heard the last of the company on this buildup. There's more M.I.T. drivetrain savvy coming your way in upcoming Project J2008 installments.

M.I.T. tech Christian Garcia puts the finishing touches on our freshly rebuilt '73 J2000 Dana 44 before slapping it in place of our stock 19-spline, two-piece shaft stocker. The new axle has factory 30-spline shafts, Yukon 4.56 gears, and an Eaton Truetrac differential.

Because Hell Creek Suspension hadn't finalized its post-mount J-truck lift kit at the time of our install, we ordered up a quartet of Rubicon Express U-bolts for our axle swap. Rubicon Express carries U-bolts for a huge selection of axle tube diameters and in a wide variety of lengths.

Moving up front, M.I.T. tech Andy Thomas torches off the factory Dodge spring perches and shock mounts to ready our '83 1/2-ton Dodge Dana 44 for the installation. After rough cutting with the oxyacetylene torch, Thomas smoothed the tubes with a grinding disc.

Here's a little old versus new. The Dodge 1/2-ton open-knuckle axle specs out at about 67.5 inches wide, as compared with the old axle's 67 inches wide. The difference is barely noticeable and helps with the increased turning radius afforded by the open-knuckle frontend.

The '73 axle is nearly an exact bolt-in replacement for the stock '68 axle. Garcia needed to transfer the parking brake cables from the '68 axle onto the '73, and he reused the '68 hard brake lines on the '73 housing. Otherwise, it plunked right in place.

The new axle is right at home. Notice the new yoke that M.I.T. installed when it observed that the factory '73 yoke was damaged. M.I.T. keeps a wide array of parts on hand for just such last-minute emergencies.

As we mentioned before, we put in a call to PSC Motorsports for the company's stellar heavy-duty tie rod and drag link kit (PN TRK-110). The kit includes 7 feet of 11/2-inch, 0.250-wall DOM tubing, four beautifully machined weld-in tubing adapters for 7/8-inch shank right- and left-hand thread rod ends, and four right- and left-hand thread 1-ton GM rod ends.

Before installing the axle, Thomas began by enlarging the factory Dodge tie rod end tapers to match the larger GM tie rod taper. At our request, Thomas reemed the knuckles from the bottom because we though we'd have spring-to-tie rod interference. We were wrong. There's enough meat left to taper the knuckles from the other side, so we'll handle that at a later date.

After some careful measuring, Thomas located the 2-inch-wide Rubicon Express spring perches (PN RE1900) on the new axle. Remember those Hell Creek Suspension front U-bolt flip plates from the suspension installation? Here they are, as promised. They have the correct width for use with the J2000's 2-inch-wide front springs and feature oblong U-bolt mounting holes for use with several different axle types.

D'oh! Just when you think you're home free, Murphy's Law rears its ugly head. In our case, the drag link made hard contact with the spring pack when turning left. We'll have to add a 1-inch spacer under it. More bad news was that our Dynatrac steering arm positioned the tie rod end solidly into the tire. We borrowed a 1/4-inch wheel spacer from M.I.T. to get home, but when we add the steering arm spacer it won't work, so we'll have to find another arm that positions the tie rod end further inboard.

The factory pitman arm was also given the larger taper. To give a bit more clearance, the pitman arm was tapered to accept the tie rod end from the top, not the bottom.And for those of you let down by our failure to locate a proper dropped pitman arm for the manual steering box when we did the lift kit, we can report that Rubicon Express's dropped pitman arm for a manual box CJ (PN RE2505) is a perfect fit on the J2000's steering box and stock drag link tie rod end.

Dodge Dana 44 front axles have the passenger spring perch cast into the centersection. It makes swapping into a smaller vehicle a pain, but on a J-truck with the outboard post-mounted springs, we discovered the centersection makes a perfect positioning device for use with the Rubicon Express offset spring perch (PN 1910). The offset perch makes it really easy to weld up against the censtersection.

Thomas finished off the swap by welding the stock Dana 44's shock mounts to the Dodge axle and by installing a beautiful pair of 22-inch-long Rubicon Express braided steel brake lines. After bleeding the brakes, we found the fronts dragged just a bit, but not severe enough for us to dive into the stock master cylinder to remove the drum brake check valve, since this truck will be getting a new master cylinder in a little while.