I am looking into beefing up my front axle D30 with the Artex armor kit and a aftermarket diff cover (front and rear). While I'm at it I would probably go ahead and re-gear (trying to decide on 4:56 or 4:88) and upgrade ball joints (synergy).

My questions:

• Is while I am doing that, is there anything else specifically you would do for sure while it's apart? For example, chrome molly rear axle, sleeve front housing as well, anything else?
• What gearing would you go with and why based upon all of my info?

FYI my rig's info:

• 2013 JKU with factory 3:73 gearing and LSD
• 2.5 RK max travel lift with 315/70R17 GY duratracs (may go Nitto Trail Grapplers in the future)
• Probably on the heavy side with front and rear steel bumpers, winch and rubi rails with Ace sliders

My driving info:

• This is my daily driver with mostly city driving.
• We do have an intersate thru our town so there is quite a bit of interate type travel short distances.
• I do have to be able to drive it for work trips if the come up. Would be 2 to 6 hour drives when they come up which isn't all to often.
• Terrain around here is relatively flat with rolling hills. However, there are is some steeper terrain available about 2 to 4 hrs away. Mostly mud and ruts with very little rocks unless going the 2 to 4 hrs away.

 

If the truss is properly welded there should be no reason to sleeve the axle too. If doing all this work to the front your next weak point would have to be your axle shafts.

Also, you might consider doing a drag link flip if you got the artec raised bracketed kit, this will lowered your draglink angle making your steering more of a stock angle reducing bump steer.

With all of what you're doing you should be able to run Nitto Trails with confidence. I ran them on my stock 30 with no issues for some time. I never had any problems with my D30 at all.

 

With only 2.5" of lift I wouldn't flip your draglink unless your steering feels flighty. You can install just the artec truss without the raised trackbar bracket (which would require the draglink flip to keep them parallel if you do).

Rear axle shafts are easy to swap, so it's not necessary to do them during a gear install.

My front 44 is sleeved, trussed, gusseted, and lower CA skids installed. No problems so far.