I am weighing my options of a front 44 or 60 price wise. I have a C&C 14 bolt for the rear with a width of 63.5 and I want my front to be very close in width. I dont want a fullsize axle hanging out the sides of my Jeep so a 60 is a little out of the question with the widths they come in so I started thinking about a 44

My question is would it be cheaper to narrow a 60 and get custom shafts or build the piss out of a 44 starting with the right width.

I plan on running nothing bigger than 39's and where I am located (Northern MI/Canada) I am no rock-crawler.

TIA

I'm in the same boat your in. do I start from scratch with an empty 44 or do I buy a ready to go HP 60 and naroow it. I've looked at the options.. only problems with the 60 in a TJ in the stock location is clearence, if you go with a HP and High steer it starts to get pretty tight. It can be done

Narrowing an front axle housing is not expensive, especially if you do take it apart first and do the assembly- just have a qualified individual or shop do the welding. MOSER can cut and spline the existing axle for under $100, no custom axle necessary.
If you got the $$ for the 60, go for it and don't look back.

Narrowing an front axle housing is not expensive, especially if you do take it apart first and do the assembly- just have a qualified individual or shop do the welding. MOSER can cut and spline the existing axle for under $100, no custom axle necessary.
If you got the $$ for the 60, go for it and don't look back.

A friend was telling me he had Moser do this for him a few years back. The shipping charges each way were almost as much as the Moser's labor. He shipped only the empty housing and two axles. Total cost was under $300.00 for everything, including the shipping charges.

The excessive width can be compensated for with wheels that have large amounts of backspacing (i.e. h2 wheels).

If you dont want to narrow a front 60, watch out for the newer Ford axles,( like 86 to 91) they have very wide spring mounts, which makes it difficult for mounting your coil buckets in the front of a TJ, without going to coil overs, or welding a bunch of your brackets to cast iron.

A friend was telling me he had Moser do this for him a few years back. The shipping charges each way were almost as much as the Moser's labor. He shipped only the empty housing and two axles. Total cost was under $300.00 for everything, including the shipping charges.


Since I'm not a welder, I had a local shop narrow my front D60 and cut down
the inner shaft and respline it. They charged me $78 to do the inner shaft.

Thanks for the replies. Lots of good info.

The axle wont be in the stock location, so hopefully fitting everything under there wont be such a PITA.

good luck getting the H2 on a 44

good luck getting the H2 on a 44
What?

steering clearance issues...it can be done, but the arms are spendy.

http://www.rockstomper.com/catalog/steering/highsteer.htm

I recomend a full width 14 and 60 and go with the H1 double beadlocks. Their offset will put you back close to what you are looking for. I am going with a dually 60/70 combo on my cheby and going to use the H1's to get it back to stock.

I was in the same boat as you are now. If you have the funds then def get a 60 and cut it down, otherwise throw in a 44 for now so you can keep wheelin and save up for the 60 eventually. As long as you aren't crazy with the stupid pedal you should be able to get away with a 44.

Check with DTS (http://http://www.drivetrainspecialists.com). They're in the northern Detroit area. They can probably hook you up with a heavy duty setup.

good luck getting the H2 on a 44

I beleive you have H2 wheels confused with H1. Backspacing clearance issues are pretty much non-existant with H2 wheels. About the only thing you have to do with them is open up the center hole.

My Chevy Dana 44 cut down 4" on the long side is 2" wider than my 63.5" C&C 14bolt and uses any '80-91 Jeep Wagoneer long side axle shaft. It's holding up well with 37s using finesse instead of the stupid pedal to get where it needs to go.