I am a newbie on this board so forgive my ignorance. I just read through a few threads dealing with axle swaps. Has anyone done a D44 axle swap on a Disco? The reason I am asking is because one of my buddies has a front and rear D44 that he is wanting to get rid of. How big of a PITA is it to do a complete swap? I have a couple of friends that have done swaps but not on rovers. Is there any advice?:flipoff2:

I think Way is your man to talk to about the D44 swap. PM him, or wait and he'll probably reply to this thread

I would give the front end four bananas out of five. I would give the rear end two bananas. Front ends are critical when it comes to being precise. I have a tolerance of 1/16" of an inch on mine. I completed mine by keeping all of the geometry of the Land Rover axle exactly the same (less the pinion angle). I decided that I wanted to use my SG 3-link arms, center link, and my modified SG cross member.

What you want to do is decide on the suspension you want to use. If you just want the bigger axle and do everything else the same then, it is do-able. I kept all of teh SG bracketry on bolted tight on referenced everything from the CL (center line) of the housing. Basic geometry will be needed. I started with the spring perch plates and made sure the top mounting surface is where I wanted them. After that I referenced the control arm brackets off of the spring perch center hole.

Ask a specific question and I can help you out. Sweet mod to do! What are the 44s out of. Make sure the offset is within a inch or so of where your rover one is.

Way

I am not sure what the axles are out of. My buddy deals a lot with old Broncos. Besides just swaping the axles, will I have to mess with steering and all that junk. I am wanting to fit 35s at least with hopes of fitting 37s. I am wanting to use regular coil springs because i think coil-overs would be too expensive. I will do some more checking on the axles and let you guys know later.

For clarification you are talking about swapping in the entire axle, not just trying to fit inner axles in the rover housing..right??? You will need to modify steering BTW.

Way

Originally posted by WBDISCO
I am not sure what the axles are out of. My buddy deals a lot with old Broncos. Besides just swaping the axles, will I have to mess with steering and all that junk. I am wanting to fit 35s at least with hopes of fitting 37s. I am wanting to use regular coil springs because i think coil-overs would be too expensive. I will do some more checking on the axles and let you guys know later.

If you are planning to run 37s you will probably want to move the front axle forward to get better clearance on the fire wall. Moving the axle forward will be a fairly big job cause you gotta move the spring perches on the frame but in terms of the whole job this will not be hard to do just more time consuming. Coil overs would be easier to do this.

In terms of the actual swap it isnt that hard to do if you got the right gear and can afford to have the rig off the road. If you got neither of these then it will be expensive. Custom swapping an axle into a rover is same as swapping axles into anything. Its all just cutting, drilling, welding and bolting things together. If you can do all that confidently and have the right gear then its easy.

Sam

I disagree, alignment and proper skills are a must. For a buggy having a vehicle that handles well at speed is not that important. For a daily driver or non trailer rig, it is very important to have everything be dead nuts on. I think saying that being able to perform drilling, welding, and other skills makes the job easy is a very big understatement. I think being a certified welder that understands penetration and the proper set-up on the welding unit itself is very important. I would heliarc a lot of the axle if the tubes are being cut down. I would also have a professional shop use a hydraulic press to put in new axle housings. This may be a little overkill, but if a good donor axle can be found where brackets can just be welded on, and assuming you did what you did and cut the rover brackets off and weld on to a D44, than yes, the job is doable for the average Joe.

Way

I am planning on doing this pretty much on my own. I have access to a welder, plasma cutter, etc... I am decent at welding, but if need be I have a buddy that is certified that can help me. Pretty much this is going to be the biggest project that i have attempted, and I want to get it right. I will keep you guys updated as the project moves along.:beer: :beer: :flipoff2:

Originally posted by Way
I disagree, alignment and proper skills are a must. For a buggy having a vehicle that handles well at speed is not that important. For a daily driver or non trailer rig, it is very important to have everything be dead nuts on. I think saying that being able to perform drilling, welding, and other skills makes the job easy is a very big understatement. I think being a certified welder that understands penetration and the proper set-up on the welding unit itself is very important. I would heliarc a lot of the axle if the tubes are being cut down. I would also have a professional shop use a hydraulic press to put in new axle housings. This may be a little overkill, but if a good donor axle can be found where brackets can just be welded on, and assuming you did what you did and cut the rover brackets off and weld on to a D44, than yes, the job is doable for the average Joe.

Way

Nope - being a confident welder is the most important thing. If you can measure and align to with 1/2 an inch this will be close enough. As long as the front axle is sort of in the middle and sort of pointing straight ahead it will be fine (just like factory). Perhaps the most important thing is to try and get a little bit of caster in the setup and get the pinion pointing in the right direction so that it doesent vibrate (but a part time transfer will fix this anyway). The caster is probably the most accurate thing that needs to be measured cause too little and the rig will wander on the h/way and too much will cause the steering to be very heavy at slow speeds.

There are other important design considerations in setting up the steering links (drag link and panhard) and structural considerations in terms of link design and placement and a few other common sence dos and donts but this is all easy cause designs can be thrashed out here.

Perhaps the hardest thing to do is to fit everything under your rig in a simple and elegant way and have nothing that looks out of place.

Sam

Oh yea - in terms of welding if you are good at welding out of position (like upside down, inside out, left handed or screwed around so that you can hardly see what you are doing and have to rely on sound) then you will go a long way to making the swap easier and faster cause all you do is plonk the thing under your rig and start welding. It makes for a fast job if you dont have to pull the thing out. :D

Sam

I don't know if you guys keep up with the Toyota board, but if you do you've heard about Longfield Super axles. Which according to Bobby Long, Who produces them, they are similar to Birfields on Toyota's. Anyway, Bobby told me that if any of you guys are interested, he would talk to anyone of you about the possibility of making up Super axles for Land Rovers, maybe even setting up a free pair for one of you to test. Here's the info if you're interested:ORDERING INFORMATION:
Contact Bobby Long,
Owner of Long's Enterprise's at:
Phone (253)847-8254
Fax (253)875-1588
Address
Long's Enterprise's
20719 111th ave east.
Graham Wa, 98338


:usa: