i am looking into narrowing a for 9inch for my wrangler, but to get the axle back to 31 spline you need to cut 6inchs off each side , if you cant you can only get them resplined to 28 .
i just wanted to know if anyone else has done this and what works best.
i would go full size but i want to still fit in all the little trails i could before
thanks

Get new axles, and go with 35 spline

You can narrow the housing to any width you want and have custom shafts made. If you want to keep the stock stance, narrow it down to 61". That is a common width and shafts will be relatively inexpensive. Forget respiling.....Moser, and Currie both make custom axle shafts. Keep the 31 spline or even get the detroit and move up to 35 spline shafts.

Better Yet, Why dont you just keep them full width and run bigger backspaced wheels? Most likely your 9" is 65" WMS, a whopping 2.5 in/per side over stock TJ width. You can easily make that up with backspacing. Chances are you will need to wheels anyway to accomodate the new 5x5.5 bolt pattern.

I just put in a 65" wide 9 in my wrangler, with new 8" wheels 3.5" backspacing and 35's it's looks narrower than it did with the stock axles, and my bling bling 10" aluminium wheels with about 2" of backspacing. Do what you want, but it ain't worth narrowing in my opinion.

If you do, go ahead and get new 31 or 35 spline shafts, 28 is barely bigger than the Dana 35 shafts

Chad

I cut my housing down to a size that let me use one stock truck housing axle and one cut down and resplined. The trucks use two axles 32 inches long with an offset pinion to allow two of the same length axles. If you go this route, you can get a centered pinion and a 60 3/4 inch wide axle for pretty cheap.

might look into using fullsize truck or van axles to be able to respline to the correct length. We use the late 70's van and truck housing to build the rears out of.

If you look hard enough, you should be able to find someone that will narrow your housing for about $200. Thats the going rate around here.

You can get them even cheaper, if you supply the Ford big bearing housing ends which can be had from chassisshop.com for $58/pr (PN - C42-701). The labor to narrow a housing is usually around $120.

Make sure you find a shop that actually does the narrowing, not one that says 'ya, we can narrow a rear end', then the sublet the work (yes, this is a problem). Needless to say, this route is more expensive.

After narrowing the housing, you can narrow the stock 31 spline axles. Dutchman, here in Portland, OR, will narrow stock shafts for around $50/pr. Or go with 35 spline Detroit, and custom Dutchman ChroMo shafts for about $400 (plus detroit).

So I say, you can have a 9" narrowed, including shafts, for less that $300.

Willis