Shortening a hp44

[Derek33]

I was offerent a High pinion 44 for a very good price. Its still under the truck and everything works great which eliminates the need to rebuild the whole thing.

I like the current stance of my zj... so i would like to shorten it.

The first question i have is about the length. How similar are the short sides of a waggy and a 79 ford f250 axle. If they are similar, i would only need to shorten the passenger side.

The other question is about the process. I've been looking for a good write up but haven't found much. Are any specific tools required? Whats the process, cutting off the knuckles and rewelding them onto a cut tube, or do you cut a chunk out of the tube and sleeve it?

Thanks,

Derek

[Ted_Z]

The process is straight forward. You cut/grind the "C" to tube weld out and take the "C's" off. You then cut down the tube and press/hammer the "C's" back on and reweld. The nice thing about doing this is you can set the pinion and caster angle to anything you want.

I shortened my HP44 to waggy width so I could run stock waggy shafts. I'm also running early jeep flat top knuckles, waggy calipers/caliper brackets and ford rotors. The width matches good with my 8.8 with 5x4.5 to 5x5.5 adapters.

[Derek33]

Did you shorten the drivers side tube too? or just the passenger?

[AgitatedPancake]

Ted, are you running ford or chevy spindles? Your setup sounds pretty similar to mine and with ford rotors and spindles, I have to take material off new inside brake pads to make them fit because of how the rotor is offset.

[Ted_Z]

To be exact, I'm running early jeep waggy spindles (they came with the knuckles). The are dimensionally identical to early chevy spindles with the small bearings.

I shortened both sides. Since I changed the pinion angle I would have had to cut both sides anyway to adjust the caster. Additionally, by going to stock waggy width I'm able to use the waggy steering setup (after changing out the tie rod end on the steering box).

[Derek33]

Isn't a waggy's axle roughly the same width as a d30? Any possibility i could re-use my jcr steering?

[AgitatedPancake]

To be exact, I'm running early jeep waggy spindles (they came with the knuckles). The are dimensionally identical to early chevy spindles with the small bearings.

I shortened both sides. Since I changed the pinion angle I would have had to cut both sides anyway to adjust the caster. Additionally, by going to stock waggy width I'm able to use the waggy steering setup (after changing out the tie rod end on the steering box).

Perfect - someone on pirate mentioned they thought I should be running chevy small bearings, so you just reaffirmed it for me. Thanks

[Ted_Z]

Isn't a waggy's axle roughly the same width as a d30? Any possibility i could re-use my jcr steering?

The waggy 44 is about 1" wider than a XJ/TJ/ZJ D30 depending on who you ask.

[DaveB]

My son and I just narrowed a 79 F250 HP D44 for his MJ. We also shortened it to waggy width by narrowing both sides. We also used flat top chevy knuckles, spindles, hubs and rotors. We picked this axle up over the 77 F150 axle that lots of people use because there were no radius arm mounts to deal with since it used leaf springs. However the leaf perch that is cast as part of the center differential gets in the way of the control arm and spring brackets once the axle is narrowed to waggy width. We ground off part of the perch to get our brackets to work. Another issue with narrowing the axle to waggy width is the spring perch has to ride up onto the pumpkin a bit on the drivers side which will give you more lift that you will need to compensate for. We are hoping to get his rig to Moab this week for a test run so we'll see how it does. By the way if you look on the NAXJA site there is a lot of information on doing this swap.