NP205 question...

jeep_man_401

Anybody know just how weak the rear slip yoke is on a NP205. Will be pulling at truck pulls running a small lift...2 to 4" only. :-|

76-cj7

From what i've seen they hold up pretty decent......but from the looks of the picture of ur t-case its from a 80 model year........in 80 they dropped the NP203 from the line up and used the NP 205 only and then came up with the NP208 in 81'..........as long as you build a decent strong rear drive shaft i'd say you're in the clear.

jeep_man_401

You are correct...it was a 80's model silverado 3/4 ton. I've read that the slip yoke is weak on a lifted truck. But I'm not going to be running killer driveline angles. But I will be running a ton of torque through it. Would you know if the Chevy dana 44 and the Jeep 44 can interchange lock-outs? I'll be stuck with the Dana 44 front for a year or 2 I think until I get the my set-up all done...then I want to install a Dana 60 up front.

tufcj

Chevy, Ford, and Jeep Dana 44 lockouts all interchange. I'm running Jeep lockouts in my Ford hub/rotor assemblies on my CJ front. Bob tufcj

ironman_gq

Not sure of this but I think that the slip yoke weakness is mostly related to the fact that a lifted suspension puts more angle on the shaft and can cause the yoke to pull out of the tcase when the suspension flexes.

ironman_gq

Tuffcj- what front axle you have?

tufcj

I'm running a homebuilt Dana 44 front.

The housing is a GM Dana 44HD from a 3/4 ton truck. It has 1/2" wall tubes and the passenger side spring pad is SOA. It's been cut to 56" WMS/WMS (just 1" wider than Jeep widetrack). The short axle shaft is off the shelf Wagoneer, the long side custom cut. Spindles are 72-74 GM small journal, bearings/seals/rotors are Ford F150 or Bronco. Backing plates and calipers are GM/Jeep. It sits with the springs in the factory location on the Jeep (YJ front springs). We did have to machine about 8 degrees into the cast spring plate to get the pinion angle right.

It's SOA and shackle reversed, and has a custom long slip front shaft that has about 12" of travel, it uses about 6" from full compression to full droop.

It also has a high steer setup that uses shortened Wagoneer tie rods (solid, instead of hollow like a CJ).

Bob
tufcj

jeep_man_401

Not sure of this but I think that the slip yoke weakness is mostly related to the fact that a lifted suspension puts more angle on the shaft and can cause the yoke to pull out of the tcase when the suspension flexes.

Same as I heard...
I have the Dana 44 off the chevy 3/4 ton but I don't want to go through all the trouble of swapping parts to make it work under the J10. If I do I would do it with a Dana 60 instead. But I will be pulling with it not climbing rocks. The next rebuild I hope to be around 700hp and I can't see a posi Dana 44 holding up to that for long even with better parts put into it.
The class I run in requires you to drive the truck to the pulls and it would be nice to be able to drive home after I am done. :?:

Soylent_Green

I'm running a homebuilt Dana 44 front.

The housing is a GM Dana 44HD from a 3/4 ton truck. It has 1/2" wall tubes and the passenger side spring pad is SOA. It's been cut to 56" WMS/WMS (just 1" wider than Jeep widetrack). The short axle shaft is off the shelf Wagoneer, the long side custom cut. Spindles are 72-74 GM small journal, bearings/seals/rotors are Ford F150 or Bronco. Backing plates and calipers are GM/Jeep.

Just so I can understand, could you explain the choices you made building this axle, and why you used those parts. I always hear people talk about things like this and tell me stories about how they had to adapt everyhing to work together. :-|

76-cj7

Really when you start to compare the little things between GM, Ford, and Jeep they all are pretty much the same....ford has 5 bolt spindles and jeep and chevy have 6 bolt....so chevy and jeep interchange and so on......just hit up a u-pull it on a decent day and spend the whole day nib-shittin around on different front ends and what not.........................as far as the jeep and chevy D44's...perty much the same , axle tubes may be different thinkness and so on but with a lil bit of imagination, creativity and the ability to make something out of nothing will help greatly!

tufcj

Dana 44 is pretty much the same between Ford/Chevy/Jeep, like said above. I used the GM housing because it was SOA and FREE. I cut it because I didn't want to outboard the springs. Some guys with SUA run a Wagoneer 44 with just the long side cut, but the chevy is wider so both sides had to be cut. The short side to wagoneer length worked for widetrack width. The 44 axles have the bigger 297X u-joints, and the internal lockout hubs. I consistently broke u-joints and hubs on my Dana 30 with 35" tires. Ford rotors for the 5 on 5 1/2" lug pattern, so I didn't have to buy new wheels or run 2 different lug patterns. Ford rotors are the same diameter and thickness as GM. I was using GM flat top knuckles for the high steer and GM calipers and backing plates. Ford spindles are about 3/8" shorter than GM, and there was no way to get the inside brake pad in place with Ford spindles. The GM 72-74 spindles have the same bearing diameter as Ford, but are taller. All lockouts interchange, so that was a matter of preference, I found a junkyard set of Jeep lockouts. With diff carriers, you have to decide on Jeep or GM, I went with Jeep, to use the stock short Jeep axle shaft. One maker has the axle splines cut at 30 degrees, the other 45 (I don't remember which), so you have to pick one carrier and axle and stick with it. It took some hours looking thru Dana spec books at a friends shop to get an idea of what I needed, then more hours at the boneyards locating parts. I hope to share the knowledge and save anyone else some of the headaches I went thru. Bob tufcj