Some of you know i keep spitting the caps out of my ujoints that connect my axle shafts together. This is because I have broken ujoints before there and have stretched the yokes. So instad of spending 150-200 a side, i decided when i do my front end i am going to weld the caps in. Some of you may think its not the best of ideas, but i've done it a few times before and its actually a fairly common thing to do on a D44 and alot of wheelers use it. Now you may be wondering how the hell do you change a joint of it does break? All i am doing is putting a SMALL tack weld on the shaft side of the yoke to hold it in place and keep it from walking. If i happen to break one on the trail, i have a small electric die grinder i carry with me to grind it off and replace(easy to do a ujoint on the trail..) Eventually i will have OBA and just bring an air powered grinder. On to my other idea, say you have the same issue as me yet do not want to weld the joint? Thought is is use a epoxy for metal(lok tight makes some) and lok tight the yoke bores and u joint caps. Should work correct? Another thought is to grind a small grove in the yoke surfae and install the full clip style on top of he ujoint. Eventually i will replace my shafts with new ones and i will tack those as well but will keep my old ones ready to go just incase i break a shaft or ujoint. Most people don't need to tack on d60s due to the fact they are stronger and people break less ujoints in those than in a 44, and if im correct the tolerence is a little tighter on the 60 and they use a top style clip. Any thoughts on this? Also simply replacing a loose ujoint can stretch the yokes enough to make the caps want to walk. I caught one early yesterday and was able to hammer it back in and re clip it. I have heard more than one person just replacing stock ujoints with spicer or the cheapies or even the most $$$ ones and having the same issues as me. The yokes in the D44 are fairly weak and can easily stretch, if you let a ujoint go to far or press out a supper rusty one that takes a lot of force.

 

Wonder how difficult it would be to go to a CV style joint?

 

Well the knuckles on these have a fairly tight fit with the ujoint, so possibly using D^) outters it may not be all the difficult. Or using a heavy duty D44 and using the normal D44(5lug) outters you might be able to go to a cv style. Not to bad of an idea there.The D44 is a pretty good axle in these trucks but if you live in an area where you wear ujoints out often and wheel enough/use 4wd enough to break ujoints often then the shafts on the 44 are not so good. In all honesty with proper pats the D44 can built nearly as strong as a stock D60

 

Wonder how long the CV style joint would take to break.

Could find a 5 lug D60 axle set in a junkyard. A guy I know did that with his D44.

 

CV if it was GOOD quality may last a bit longer. Yea those are hard to find, but an idea as well. Eventually i will do a d60 swap, but for now i want to make the D44 survive. I have also thought of measuring ujoints and trying to find one thats SLIGHTLY over sized and putting it in my stretched yokes for a tight fit..

 

You can shrink the yoke ears back to size using heat and water or oil, you would then need to temper/harden the ears after that.

Do a google search for shrinking steel and one for quench harding of steel.

Edit; If you want some tips on how to do it pm me.

 

I've done the tack welding trick before lol. As far as I know it's still holding up lol. Sold that truck a long time ago.