I need help id'ing my TJ's 44 rear. My problem made itself apparent when I needed a new pinion seal for it. A standard TJ/ZJ/XJ d44 pinion seal does NOT work. Every seal I get is too small in overall diameter. They fit the yoke fine, but they fall right through the pinion snout opening. A standard TJ d44 pinion seal fits a bore ~2-3/4" in diameter. I need something closer to ~3-1/8".

This axle was swapped in ... in place of a d-you know what. It came direct from Dana ... "fell off the truck" special. It was a brand new axle, setup for TJ/ZJ bracketry, 3.73's, tracklock, drums, etc ... standard TJ d44 stuff.

The BOM number on the right hand tube reads:

DR606646 C78

Under the cover plate, stamped into the machined face of the pig is:

GNB1073C

The casting number on the pig is:

48177

I checked Patooyee's Dana BOM page but couldn't find anything that matches the 606646 number.

Can anyone out there feed me a clue as to what I scored and most importantly, what I need to look to for a new pinion seal.

Thanks in advance.

cm "yes, it is a 44" k

http://pages.prodigy.net/coolmank/pics/cmksjeep/d44cover.jpg

btt

cm "oh, we gotta' give the guy some of this" k

The number doesn't come up on Dana's BOM search site.

Why not just take the old seal in and have someone match it?? Even if you can't find a part number on it, my local napa just sticks a caliper on it and looks it up by size.

Unfortunately, I never foresaw (is that a word?) the pinion seal being a problem so I junked it as soon as I yanked it.

www.drivetrain.com (http://www.drivetrain.com) was able to find the necessary pinion seal for me, after a couple calls to Spicer. Apparently I do in fact have a standard issue 1998 Dana TJ d44. It seems though that early in 98 (when 44's first became available on TJ's), Dana used a really oddball centersection (or machined it differently) such that it uses this oddball pinion seal. That run of early '98 d44's is the only axle that uses this weird seal.

cm "go figure" k