The green machine told me that I should get axle sleeves for 4wheeling, is this sound advice do those things really work to protect the axle, should I get them for both front and rear?

 

C Gussets should be your first priority.

Then consider inner and/or outer sleeves. Must-Have? It's debatable. Good Insurance? Definitely. Look into adding control arm skids at the same time.

Adding sleeves to the rear wouldn't hurt, but the front housing is the one to worry about.

 

Yeah I went with the EVO 44 Magnums.. its a $150 insurance plan that is worth every penny. You can get a package deal for both the sleeves and gussest from EVO do them both!

 

I just did these on Friday. They are a must if your running big tires. My buddy just put a D44 on the front of his jeep, and is running 37's. He did almost no weeling in moab, remembers hitting one bump fast and his RF is bent! F that!

 

O ya, he trussed the diff too! I looked at outer sleeves, I found a nice setup, but you had to cut all the ARM mounts off the axle and build from there... F it, I took it to EVO instead.

 

The R-SE Bombshell Kit looks pretty good.

 

x2, I would recommend it. I personally only have the outers, but its a quality set up.

 

Thanks for the replies... first of all i must say I am green when it comes to a lot of this... so far I know I want air lockers, 4.88 gears, 35 inch tires, 3.5 inch lift, and I am trying to figure out which brand to go with for all of these. Now I am looking at the upgrades for the axle which you guys have mentioned some ideas for.

So can you explain more what a control arm skid is, and what are gussets? what do you mean by outers? Also should I get air lockers for all four wheels? should I get the items you all mentioned for both front and rear axles? Also can you tell me what splines mean? Some are 27 and some are 30 what is the difference in this case? Thanks for the tips.

 

Looking at that pic, the big tube on the left and the shorter tube next to it are 'inner' sleeves. You pull the axle shafts out, drill a bunch of holes in the housing, slide those in, and then weld up all the holes.

The small pieces above and below the shorter tube are the C Gussets. At both ends of your front axle, behind the tires/brakes, are big chunks of metal shaped like a 'C'. Those are fairly weak and easy to bend, especially with larger tires and offroad use. Gussets are welded to the C's to strengthen them to, hopefully, prevent bending. There are both upper and lower gussets, but only the uppers are in that picture.

Next is the 'outer' sleeves. Again, they get welded on, but to the outside of the housing. This company cuts them to fit around the existing brackets so you don't need to cut them off, others are designed differently.

CA Skids, not pictured, are extra protection for the lower control arms where they attach to the bottom of the housing. If you go in rocks at all, you will soon scrape the hell out of those brackets.


Lockers - up to you as to whether or not you want or need them. There are a lot of different options, ranging from $250 'lunchbox' lockers up to $850-$1200 air/electric/cable operated 'selectable' lockers. Air lockers will of course need an additional air source that could run another $300 or more. They are installed in the center of the axle with the gears, so you will only need 2, not 4. (or 1, if you only decide to do one axle)

The ends of the axle shafts will have notches cut in them. The numbers correspond to the number of notches and also have a bearing on the diameter of the axle itself. The lockers will be designed to work with a particular housing and a particular axle spline count. Your from D30 has 27 spline axle shafts in both side of the housing going into the center pumpkin. (and the outers are 32 spline, but that doesn't matter as far as lockers are concerned). Your D44 rear has 30 spline shafts. (no inner and outer shaft, just a single 30 sp shaft per side.
So your front locker will be compatible with a D30 with 27 splines, and your rear locker will be a D44 30 spline.
(If you swap to larger axle shafts for greater strength, you will also swap to different versions of the lockers. ex. - a 35spline ARB with 35spline shafts instead of the ones listed above.)

Be sure to do lots and lots of research so you know not only what you are getting, but that they are the right components for you needs. You can dump a ton of money into it and end up smacking yourself silly if you don't do your homework...

 

This is such a ridiculously true statement...

Like nthinuf said in an earlier post, C-gussets (upper and lower) should at a minimum be your first axle mod as you are going to go to 35s and presumably go off-roading. Luckily, it's also the lowest cost mod out of the bunch.