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Scout axles?

rstickley

rstickley

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After reviewing all kinds of info on axles, I am more confused than when I started. Eventually I plan on a 5.3lt LS and auto and 35" tires build. I plan on mild trails and long trips with this one. Stock axles are on it now but figured I needed to upgrade. I found some dana 44 out of a 75 Scout. Are these good axles and what modifications would I have to do to make them fit?
 
IIRC, the scout front axles have bad camber issues that necessitate cutting/rewelding the knuckles back on to correct. Some now hard to find parts for back brakes, too :shrug:

I have 44,000 miles on modified stock axles. Lots of cross country trips, lots of wheeling easy/mild/moderate stuff, no problems. BUT, I am running 33's and an injected 6 :shrug:
 
Those are good axles. The rear is easy: cut off the old perches, and weld on new perches at the correct spacing.

The front is trickier, depending on what you want to get out of it. You can either narrow the axle, or outboard your springs. The second part is setting the pinion angle and the caster angle; the pinion angle can be adjusted with shims, or if you're careful you can grind the material away to get it kicked up a hair--or if you go SOA, you'll weld your new perch on the left side at the correct angle, then it's a lot of grinding on the right side to create a space for a perch, and then needing to pre-heat the diff to weld the perch to the cast iron. The caster angle does require grinding the welds off the yokes, rotating them, and re-welding.

The Scout axles are 5x5.5", so that's handy. The fronts have slightly upgraded brakes, and I've never had a problem getting brake parts for it. Or you can swap the knuckles for the CJ knuckles and keep running the CJ outers.
 
I would look into a J10 or widetrack Cherokee front 44 if you are going to consider cutting a knuckle off. You can pick your lug pattern 5 on 5.5, 6 on 5.5 or 8 on 6.5 with common off the shelf parts. The internally splined hubs are also stronger than the externals on the scouts. The rear brakes are the hard to get/find/expensive ones.

That said, I started down this road looking for wide track CJ axles. I am currently setting up a j10 44 with 8 lug hubs and a FF dana 60 rear...
 
I‘m in the same boat. I’ve got a D44 front out of a RamCharger that has the 5 on 5.5” and plan to use a D60 for the rear.

The D44 will get cut to custom width based on the 12.5” x 35“ tires on 15” x 10” rims. Same for the D60, but it will probably come from East Coast Gear Supply in a custom configuration.
 
Isn't the Scout front axle a glorified dana 30. Dont remember where I heard that or if it is even true. Will have to Googleit. Wikipedia's info: 74 and up was a 44.
 
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sdsupilot said:
That said, I started down this road looking for wide track CJ axles. I am currently setting up a j10 44 with 8 lug hubs and a FF dana 60 rear...
Click to expand...

You knew where wide track CJ's with 4.10's were the whole time.....you just wanted to be difficult. lol #neverbeefyenough
 
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