I have a D44 from a 79 bronco. I figured since I have a 14 bolt going in the back I might as well do the 8 lug conversion on my D44. I bought a set of hubs and rotors from a local junk yard. I pulled them from a Ford f-250. The F-250 had a TTB front end, I like a dumb ass didnt check what year the truck was or if it had a D44 or a D50 up front, I just assumed it was a D44. Can anybody help me figure out what type of axle would have the right size spindles and caliper brackets to match both the 79 bronco D44 and the * lug hubs and rotors. I have a set of big bearing spindles from a chevy 10 bolt but they are not sitting right and the caliper brackets would not work. Thanks for any help or info.

http://77cj.littlekeylime.com/web_rs44.html
read that, thats what im using as refrence for my 8lug conversion.

I have done several swaps from 78/79 F-250 axles. I even took the parts off the front of a 1980 4wd van once.

thanks for that link. I was reading it over and I noticed that they said if you decide that you want to cut the radius arms off then you will be shortening the axle tube since there is nothing underneath the arm mounts which sucks because I wanted to cut off the arm mounts and weld on some coil buckets for my XJ. AHHHH shit back to the drawing board. :shaking:

Just FWIW, I dunno if you figured it out yet, but I just did that same swap this weekend on my buddy's '79 HP44. I posted a short writeup on another forum but I'll copy/paste it here for ya...

Here's the standard Ford spindle. This is with the hub and rotor etc removed.

http://www.phatxj.com/users/chris/spindle1.jpg

Take out the five bolts holding the spindle in place, and remove the shaft. Ball joint nuts come off, bang the knuckle off, and set aside.

http://www.phatxj.com/users/chris/spindle2.jpg

Here's the donor axle - yep, that's right, Chevy 10-bolt. It's from a Suburban. From this axle, you'll need the outer shafts, knuckles, spindles, backing plates, calipers, and tierod. If you can snag the front brakelines, that makes things easier also.

http://www.phatxj.com/users/chris/spindle3.jpg

This is the Chevy knuckle mounted up. The ball joints from the 10-bolt don't work, so you'll need to press them out, and re-use (or get new ones) the ball joints from the Ford D44 knuckle. The hole is the same size and the snap ring works out fine.

http://www.phatxj.com/users/chris/spindle4.jpg

Next, take apart the Ford axle shaft, and put the Chevy outer shaft on the end of the Ford shaft. They're nearly identical, but the Chevy outer has a notch further out on the splines for a lock ring that the Ford doesn't have. Put the shaft in, and bolt up the Chevy spindle and backing plate. You'll be using the Chevy calipers here.

http://www.phatxj.com/users/chris/spindle6.jpg

Also note that the tapered hole for the TRE won't match the stock Ford steering gear. However, the Chevy tierod is just about the right length for the Bronco front, so just bolt that sucker in there. Furthermore, the hole for the Chevy steering stabilizer can be used as the connection for the drag link in an inverted-T setup, which the Ford axle had already anyway. You'll need to mess with the alignment probably, but it does work out.

Here's everything bolted up, complete with new Warn Premium locking hubs (bought for the Chevy application).
http://www.phatxj.com/users/chris/spindle7.jpg

Seems to work fine going down the road, and was very painless - we got both sides done easily in one day. This was done to match the 10.25" FF rear axle.

Also, regarding cutting the HP44 down - have you tried lining it up yet? The coil buckets in their stock locations are damn near the right width for an XJ, if you don't mind going full width. You can even rotate the coil buckets a little bit to make them line up even better.