Hey guys I have a 2011 sport unlimited with a Dana 30 and was wondering if i needed to put some gussets and reinforcement on it to run my bigger tires. I have 35s right now and may go to 37s some day. Any help would be great! Thanks.

 

what both of them said. with 35's, you should have c-gussets already. if you plan on running 37's, chromoly shafts are what i would get next. sleeves are cheap insurance but, i would get the shafts first.

 

Yes, c-gussets at the minimum. I have a dana 30 on my unlimited and went with EVO magnum 44 sleeves, EVO c-gussets and superior chromo axles, 5:13's and an ARB locker. Very happy with this setup. After talking to several shop owners, general concensus is to make a minimal investment in your D30, just enough to make it dependable. Run it until it grenades then upgrade to a Pro rock or rock jock.

 

when you say a minimum investment, it seems like the work to do the re-enforcement plus a new set of axles is still pretty expensive. i mean an enforcement kit will run near 200 bucks, and new axle shafts will be like 500ish as well right? looking at near 500 for labor to attach everything? i'm in the same boat, wanting to jump up to 37s, but it seems like quite a bit to have to shell out all at once, on top of the cost of tires. Especially if i regear too, it seems that going from the stock 3.73s with 32" tires to a proper gearing and 37s will run $4-5k? am i way off?

 

Bit at a time. Do Cs first, ask a buddy with a welder to help you out. I bought a piece at time, Cs, (forum for 30) evo sleeves 150? , caught my ARBs on sale before the price increase 850each, RCVs from the forum for 600, gears from eBay for 200 (total), install kits on sale for 165 (total). And then took everything to a shop in FortWayne for install at 700.
So I spent about $3600ish for everything. All the vendors on here run sales or even "garage sales" where you can save money.
Do the Cs first though

 

Inserting sleeves into the diff axle tube is a good idea to stiffen the tube. What can be done to prevent the diff axle tube from coming out of the differential? I read of a 10 JKU having the bottom of his tubes coming out of the differential, his wheels looked like
this, /---\. Any kits available to fix this ????

 

im in the same boat bro, i have 35's now and want to go to 37's in the near future (year or so) but i have an 07 "X" so the d30 is an issue, but im hoping some Cgussets and evo magnum sleeves will do the trick, ill have to wait to regear tho, thats the expensive part

 

okay so I should do the c gussets first and then the sleeves and shafts. how hard are the c gussets to weld on? do i just weld them on with the axle still fully assembled? sorry for the newbie question lol

 

Yea you can weld them on with the axle fully assembled...

 

The more I price this d 30 beef up the more I am convinced to do the gussets on the d 30 blow it up and do an entire front axel replacement. Someone in another thread said you can polish a turd and you get a shiny turd.